Beach time begins!!!

We were truly blessed this year to travel and see many friends and family.  A week after we returned from Italy, we packed up our bags and headed for our Georgetown reunion.  It literally took a year and a half of planning but we somehow managed to get seven couples together and all of the kiddos!  From California, New York, Washington, D.C., North Carolina, and Florida, we all were able to meet in Charleston, South Carolina for a wild week of reminiscing and memory making!

From left to right: Anthony and Eileen (D.C), J.P. and Tiffany (NYC), Kamran and Bahar (CA), Mike and Jenna (CA), Brad and Chrissy (NC), Carl and Me and Evan and Betsy (D.C.)

Fourteen adults and six kids...it was crazy at times but the house was huge, and the kids loved each other.  Jack is the oldest of all six kids.  Jack was 3, Dylan 2 1/2, and Kian was almost 2.  The three oldest are all boys but definitely matched in smarts and beauty by the three youngest. ALL girls!  Sophie is the oldest of the girls, 16 months (at time of trip), Molly 14 months, and Mila at 9 months.  Bahar announced that she is pregnant with her second boy so I am hoping we are starting a new grouping of boys to come!  

At the time of Carl's birthday, I was trying to teach Jack the diamond shape.  We kept finding pictures of kites.  For Carl's birthday, Jack gave Carl a kite.  There hadn't been much wind at our house so we decided to bring it to the beach.  There was great wind and the kids had a BLAST!!!

Our kite was a triangle but got great wind!  Jack was so proud that he could do it all by himself.

Jack and Carl trying out the kite!

Nothing better than a good kite day on the beach!

Jack also liked to run with the kite and pick it up when it fell.

One of the most exciting parts of our trip was Jack's potty training success!!!  In the week between Italy and Charleston, we started potty training boot camp.  I know...terrible timing!  It was really my fault for not pushing the issue earlier in the summer, and Italy was no place for a potty boot camp.  After one day at summer camp with soiled sneakers, I got a wake up call that I need to stay home for basically the entire week.  I put up big posters on the walls and we would all get stickers when anyone would go potty (that idea didn't work that well). Once I told him that you couldn't go to big boy school without being potty trained, the light went on.  It didn't hurt that our pediatrician reaffirmed this to Jack.  I followed the doctor's orders of bribery.  I found a special toy saw that lit up and made cool sounds.  I put it on the mantle and told him that only big boys could use it.  When he said he didn't want to use the potty anymore, I told him he would have to give it back.  That was successful!  

Jack still wasn't fully potty trained when we went on the trip. However, by the end of the trip, he was pretty close to perfect!  Dylan and Kian were still on west coast time.  Jack was allowed to stay up later if he successfully used the potty...another very effective bribing tool!  

Jack and Dylan loved to play together.  By the end of the trip, they were inseparable!

Amazed by the kite!

Sophie loved being in Charleston.  She would wake every morning, collect her baby doll and her purse and be on her way! She never left the room without them!

Jenna and Mila

Carl loves to make his muscle man poses.  He always tells me that he wants to look back at them when he is old:) I took the first shot like this back in Hawaii (circa 2006) and he still looks just as good in this shot!

We spent a lot of time at the pool when the kids napped.

The men and their babies:)

Jack LOVED the pool.  He surprisingly wanted to spend more time at the pool than at the beach.  He loved swimming from one side to the other with his floaties.

Betsy and Molly

Who needs a DJ and an MC when you have the Georgetown crew?!?!  I am not exactly sure how we decided to form this congo line:)

Sophie is having a blast!

She is a girly little girl!

I am in trouble!!!

Jack and his "floatie"

The men dug out a nice watering hole so the kids could lounge in it.  They loved making things in the sand.

Off to get more water for the hole:)

Sophie and Momma

In between the beach and the ocean, there was a little area where water settled.  It made a great slip and slide.  Jack and Dylan would run through part of it and then jump in at the largest part.

Splashing around!

You think he had fun?!?!

My little surfer boy!

Jack and Dylan did everything together!!! Both were quite timid at first but were best friends by the end of the week.

Look at all of these babies!!!

At night, we would feed the kids first and then the adults would have a separate dinner.  After a little talk Jack and I had in Italy, Jack has begun to eat a lot more.  Jack has an obsession with Spider-Man.  I am not sure how it developed because we don't watch super heros but he loves them. Anyway, I asked him if he wanted to get big like Spider-Man which, of course, he answered yes.  I told him he needed to start eating a lot more food.  Now, he constantly talks about how he wants to be tall and have big muscles like Spider-Man and Daddy.  As you can imagine, his Daddy was very excited to be lumped in with the Super heroes.

Dylan and Kian: Although Kian is over a year younger than Jack, he was one of the three musketeers and was able to keep up with his older friends.

Loved playing with pillows

Popsicles are a must-have! We brought our lawn mowers on the trip.  They were also a big hit.  I am not quite sure the adults without kids loved those at 7 am. 

We got to go out to dinner one night without the kiddos.  It was fun to engage in some adult conversation and enjoy a nice fancy dinner.

Carl and his lady

The beach was so beautiful at sunset.  We didn't go out there at night until our last day and we were so sad that we hadn't made it a daily event.

My water baby. I actually call her the coppertone baby because she loves to walk around in just a diaper and try to pull it off on the beach.

Sophie loved being around the other girls.  They are all still so young but I know they will love each other as they get older.

The little girls

The big girls

It was wonderful to see our friends.  A week went by so quickly.  We are already talking about the next get together.  We are so blessed to have such wonderful friends that we have stayed close with over the years.  I love that our kids are the same age, and that they will grow up and hopefully develop the same friendships that we have with their parents.