Thursday, August 18, 2011

On the road again, destination: Beach

Radley is the cutest little boy in the whole world. I love to listen to him, he is hilarious! Libby is pretty fond of him too.
Soon after returning home from MO, a 21 hour drive mind you, we piled back in the car (I may have been kicking and screaming) to go to San Clemente Beach, California, a 6 and 1/2 hour drive (oh the things we do for our family). It was so fun. This is our only week at the beach so we try to live it up, and indeed we did! My two sisters and their families, and my Mom and step Dad were all there too- which totally made the drive worth it (or maybe it was that I actually got to wear a sweatshirt that made it worth it...? Hallelujah!). We hit the beach everyday, as well as went to a fun park and went on bike rides everyday.
Its kind of funny we found out this year that if you are camping at a state park you get to park for free at the state beach. So all those quarters that I have been feeding the parking meter, I could have been using on a longer shower! (the showers are a quarter for every two minutes!) on the upside Libby and I became quite efficient in our showering, only three quarters!
Our only hiccup was that Hayden got sick, and slept all day Friday, and even threw up in the middle of the night. Not fun when you are camping and have a limited supplies. But lucky for him my Mom and Darryl took really good care of him, earning them major brownie grandma and grandpa points! Thanks Mom for taking such good care of us, it was so fun.

A celebration for a beautiful new baby

So this may be old news. But I still wanted to share, my sister had a beautiful baby girl back in June. I was lucky enough to be there to welcome her into the world. It is always such an amazing experience to witness this special miracle. Although I am glad I was on the other side this time, whew! Amberly did an amazing job, and made it look like a piece of cake. But anyhow my Mom and I wanted to throw a baby celebration party for Analea. Amberly wanted it to be all about Analea, so we had the party soon after they got home to give her close friends a chance to all come over at once to see her.
It was a book themed party. We invited everyone to bring their favorite children's story, and included in the in invite a bookplate to inscribe why this is their favorite book. I found everything online at Martha Stewart. I didn't have to come up anything, I just copied everything she had, gotta love that Martha Stewart. But it turned out beautiful, if I do say so myself! I was pretty pleased, but it helps that Amberly has such an amazing house to begin with (as you can see). Since I live so far I did everything at home and brought it all out with me, so that when I got there I could spend as much time as possible with my sis, and niece. It was such a special week, and am so grateful that I could be there to bond with them. I love you Amb, I love you Analea.