Our Christmas Elf

Santa enlisted a new helper this year...a Polish Elf who entertained us quite nicely and then went to
7-11 for Slurpees. He was spreading Christmas cheer to all who could hear!

Ahoy, Matey!

One of the things on our summer bucket list this year was a pirate cruise and when the weather finally cooled cool down enough to go guess what day it happened to fall on???  National Talk Like a Pirate Day! It was a gorgeous day to set sail on the Potomac and our little pirates were ready for action.

Luckily the dollar section just happened to have pirate accessories and two (just two!) swords the day before our adventure.

On board the ship.

Pirate lessons from the crew, including how to talk like a pirate.

Ahoy, Matey!!!

While cruising the Potomac we came upon Evil Edgar who had stolen the keys to the pirate treasure chest and was taunting our little pirates from his speedboat...a fierce water cannon battle ensued...our pirates were triumphant in the end and Evil Edgar returned the keys.

The treasure chest was opened and everyone got their share of the booty.

A treasure chest full of candy???? Yes!!!

Our little pirates celebrated their victory by dancing the limbo.

Our adventure was a great success and here are the final shots of our swashbucklers:
                               

Little

(he actually kept the eye patch on the entire time!)

Bigger 

(he really loved being a pirate!)

Biggest

(just 'cause)

The saddest goodbye

We got to have Katie for seven whole weeks this summer and the boys think she is theirs, so saying goodbye was a sad, sad affair. The good news...we will see her again in 10 days in the other Washington!

7/11

Whew! We made it just in time for the free slurpees from one of the boys' happiest places on earth. Once again thank you Uncle Tom for introducing them to 7-11.

Meet Mr. Slithers

Rafal and I were just outside the living room doing some much needed yard work when the boys opened the french door to this....

Rafal yelled for them to close the door and we had a little stare off with the snake with two boys and Katie peering out the windows of the door. Finally,  Rafal poked him with a pipe and he turned right around and slithered his way through a crack between the back of the steps and the foundation of the house. Tavish ran right upstairs and found his snake book that Grandma Pat had given him last year and updated us on all the particulars of rat snakes. Later, Katie and I found him in the exact same spot but this time he raised his head, took one look at us, and slithered right away through his crack. He appears to be a relation to our dead snake on the top of our chimney.  Now when I go outside I've got one eye peeled for Mr. Slithers...he could be a unwelcome surprise for those coming in this door!

fun family activity

At the military family retreat we attended right before Katie's arrival one of our tasks was to plan a fun family activity. We decided to plan something to celebrate Katie coming to visit but plan #1 and plan #2 got pushed aside by cruddy weather. So we went bowling instead...who knew they made such cute little bowling shoes?

Field Trip #2

 Tavish's second field trip was to an outdoor nature center where he learned about squirrels...

 did some pond-netting...Tavish didn't catch anything in his net but some others caught a few shrimp and tadpoles and only one kid fell in...

 they hunted for bugs in old logs...

and got to pet a snake (I passed.)