Rushford Reunion

Time to document the most wonderful family vacation ever! It took place June 19th-23rd at our aunt and uncle's summer house on a lake in western New York. We grew up going to the lake house as it used to belong to our grandparents. When they put it up for sale a few years ago, we were all thrilled when my aunt and uncle were the ones who purchased it! They have been saying for some time now that we should all still feel welcome to come down whenever we wish. And if one of us is ever in town during the summer, we will usually go down for the day. But this was the first time we asked them if we could all come down at the same time, stay for several nights and let our kids experience being at the lake house with their cousins, the same way we had! They were so happy to hear our idea and were so gracious and generous in letting us all come and stay. It took quite a bit of planning to coordinate all our schedules, husbands take time off work, and each planning our road trips and flights from all over the country (Arizona, Indiana, Canada, Ohio and Maryland).

Did we have a blast? I'll let the pictures do the telling...

this quickly became every child's favorite chair to snuggle up on.

last day being 2! I get so nostalgic around my children's birthdays!

Luke's artistic masterpiece, for his Barney obsessed little girl

it was so much fun to get to celebrate her 3rd birthday with everyone!

I love seeing the joy on her face

My grandparent's come down for the day for Hailey's birthday. 

a fishing pole! She was super excited to fish with her daddy

Cecilia and Casey, just 4 months apart in age, such sweet little friends, spent their days throwing rocks.

trying to catch minnows like her big cousins.

Jerry and Anthony, also three yrs old and best friends.

Monica or Mary? Too far away to tell....

such a sweetie, fell asleep on the pontoon boat.

she was so timid to get one the boat, but once there, she had the time of her life and is still talking about it.

Captain Aunt Maureen and her little sailor

They are all wondering why in the world we are making them do this.

Although terrified at first, Casey warmed up to it.

the beauty of this lake gets me in the depths of my soul. I'm serious. That good looking guy and little man there do too :)

I want to go back.

I laugh every time I see this picture! They had such a good time together.

getting ready to fish for the first time with her new pole!

Yep, it's been framed, on the shelf. Just priceless.

There were a ton more amazing pictures that my sisters took and we've all been gradually sharing online with each other. I think I need to put this vacation in it's own photo album. It was such an incredible time, we hope to make it an annual event!

Feeling so blessed....

DC Boat Tour

One of the things I admit I do like about blogging, is the chance to sort of document and journal our kids lives. I'm terrible about doing baby books and keep saying I'm going to catch up with scrap booking this year (says the girl who says that every year), and so this has been a nice way to document and remember. I have dreams some day of having this ol blog, if I stick with it, put into hardcover book form some day to maybe give to the kids. I've heard that's possible. We'll see. In any case, please don't take any of this sort of "documenting our kids lives" as any sort of bragging, or flaunting. This is all for posterity's sake. I also enjoy smiling when I see pictures of their little faces, and laughing at a picture of something they were doing, after dealing with a dozen meltdowns and tantrums between 8am and noon and can barely see the light at the end of the day. Let's be real.

But I mean, this guy, he just melts my mama heart.

and frightens me too. Note hands on ankles. And he's  like, "knock it off guys."

We met up with my friend, Trena, who lives in the DC area.

Luke had tickets for the Capitol River Cruises that we were hoping to use when the cherry blossoms where at their peak. And well, we missed it. I think we had colds, and then Luke had to work over a weekend, and by the time we went down, they were all gone. I was so bummed, but we still had a great time. We had a picnic lunch (one of my favorite things to do, maybe because it brings out the Anne-girl in me) and then hopped on the boat for the noon ride. It was a 45min tour and was really neat to view the monuments from the water and learn some new facts about them. Nothing I can remember to tell you though, sorry, I have horrible memory retention when it comes to stuff like that. The kids loved loved loved it, and now whenever we get in the car Hailey says, "Boat? Ride the boat, mama!?"

Their love of water makes me both very happy and terrified. Thank goodness Hailey starts swim lessons today!