4.23 Memorial Day with friends!

May 25, 2015
By Cyndi


Another fun weekend in the books for the month of May!

The Carmeans drove down late Friday night and put their kids straight to bed.  We woke up, enjoyed donuts in the car and headed straight for strawberry picking.  Everything was perfect.  The strawberries were so good, there was so many, and the kids had a great time!!

We headed home and the kids played outside for a bit before lunch on our new climber!  They love it and I'm so glad we bought it.  It took Matt a few hours to put together and hopefully it will provide days and years of backyard fun.

T&Z took a nice nap and we headed out for the HOA summer kick-off at the pool, which is a 10 minute walk. They had some fun carnival games but only two were age appropriate for us.  We stayed an hour and headed home.  The Isaacs joined us for dinner, after-dinner drinks & fireworks. 

Everyone left Sunday before lunch, so we enjoyed some backyard pool time and just some relaxing the rest of the weekend.

So perfect!!! I can only wish every weekend is as fun!

Pool fun!

2015_05 Pool - Kizoa Video Maker

4.22 NY NY

May 20, 2015
By Cyndi

Another fun weekend in the books for the fellas and us!!  Actually, I believe the fellas had more fun than usual with Ms Kiersten and her boyfriend CJ, who made a few guest appearances, which included lego building and juggling.  Ms Kiersten said they were great, and the fellas loved having her sleep over.  We are very thankful to have Kiersten around to help out!

We left Saturday afternoon and stopped for dinner on Long Island to see ATC friends, Laura & Jim.  So good to spend the evening with them -- maybe one day they will move back to VA?!   The fellas spent their time building forts and playing with the water table outside as it was the first HOT weekend!

On Sunday, we spent the day with the Alderson clan, including GG & Poppa -- it was nice to actually chat with everyone since I wasn't distracted by the fellas!  We headed to the wedding which was at a beautiful winery on the north fork of Long Island.  The food was great, had tons of fun dancing and was a great night overall.  We had a quick breakfast and headed home on Monday to ensure we didn't hit any traffic to pick up the fellas from school.

4.21 Mother's Day & Saba's visit

By Cyndi
May 12, 2015

Saba just left this morning after a nice visit.  He hasn't seen the fellas since December, so he asked to visit and we obliged (only if he brought fresh Lou Malnati's pizza to which he agreed!!)

On Thursday, the day Saba arrived, it happened to work out that Saba's brother was stopping by too so my cousin Jessie could store some stuff in our basement while she is home from the summer.  We enjoyed dinner and they brought some great legos which the fellas wanted to build immediately!

The rest of the weekend was "normal."  The fellas' listening skills are awful and even with Saba here, there were stickers lost from their charts and repeated directions to which they ignored.  Saba did treat us to dinner on Saturday night and paid for the babysitter!  We were able to go to dinner at a great little restaurant in Leesburg.

The fellas made Mother's Day cards at school and the best is Zach's story book.  It will be one of the few art projects I will keep FOREVER!

It reads:

Mom and I by Zachary
Mom and I order donuts.
Mom and I eat donuts.
Mom and I go to sleep.
The back cover isn't of Mommy driving Zachary to the donut shop, it is of Thomas and the train engineering .... why you ask?  Because Zachary said I really like Thomas!

On Sunday, Mother's Day, we spent the morning at home and in the afternoon, we enjoyed dinner at the Isaacs. It took a few tries to get some decent pictures, but we got a few!

Saba had one last night and left this morning for Chicago.  He'll be back in two months with my brother for a Gimpel family fun weekend!  More fun this coming weekend as Matt and I head to NY for his cousin Max's wedding!!

4.20 San Francisco!

By Cyndi
May 4, 2015

I flew out (after 2 hours of delays) to SF on Thursday evening.  It was a rough day at work where I stepped out for 1.5 hours to take the fellas to swimming which was a complete failure. I'd rather not even go into the details on how bad it went.

Jason has visited us every year once (and I believe one year twice) since before the boys were born.  It was time to head out his way and enjoy his fabulous city! 

On Friday, I spent the morning working, up at 6a Pacific Time so I could be on email during normal EDT hours.  We went out for a late lunch and some city walking, dinner & a few beverages! Saturday was spent at the farmers market in the morning, lots more city walking (totaling 4+ miles), and dinner at a Burmese restaurant.   There were many places I picked out for when Matt has a weekend away.

I skyped with the fellas and heard about their day and one time they called back asking for Uncle Jason, which I thought was so cute!  They wanted to show him their trains!

Sunday morning we woke up and headed for a 5 mile walk/hike to the Golden Gate Bridge (see below as the bridge gets closer in each picture).  It was so awesome!  The fresh air was great and was just so peaceful to take a long hike.  The afternoon was spent with a high school friend, Jerome, and his friend Haena, who I have met over the years.  We ate and drank until it was time for me to head to the airport.

It was a great weekend away, yet I came back more stressed than ever that I hadn't gotten anything done on my to-do list.   I will try to remind myself that life is about enjoying it (look at all the fun pictures we took!) and not being stuck under lists.