River Rafting!

These are some pics from earlier this summer when Evan was visiting in North Carolina. He, PopPop and Grammy Lil braved the rapids!

Bookends

We got to see Uncle Andy and Aunt Sandy at the beginning and the end of our trip. Evan had a BLAST riding on the Harley with Andy!

Magical!

Our last night there we stayed up late and went to the Magic Kingdom in the rain. It's so different at night. We finally broke down after over a decade of visiting and bought Disney rain ponchos!

Spirit of Aloha

Braden and I celebrated our 12th anniversary with the kids at the Luau show. MAN, are those

polynesian men H-O-T (and not just because they are juggling fire batons)!!!!!

Sea World

Mom's favorite!!!! Evan and I fed the dolphins, but Rachel freaked out when they opened their mouths in her face!

Swimming, swimming, just keep swimming!

We had a ton-o-fun playing with the new underwater camera!

Pool, pool, more pool!

See my toes!

Can we go yet?

The kids favorite activity by far was swimming! Evan made a different best friend every day and would disappear to the slide, while Rachel gained lots of confidence. By the end of the trip- jumping into the pool, swimming, and getting out of the pool without mom or dad around at all! The girl is a daredevil!!!

Animal Kingdom

We really enjoyed the Safari ride and ,of course, making a ton of noise on the drums!

Disney!

We had so much fun in Florida! Of course we had to get several character pics :)

VA Beach

We had such a wonderful week at the beach!

Frustrations (but not really)

Braden enlisted Rachel's help in his tireless battle against the biting flies that tomented him daily.

The kite that never flew.

The sandcastle that was never completed.

Beach bonanza!

Much more to do at the beach than swim and sandcastle! We also went bowling, to the VA Aquarium, and to Water Country USA, but didn't catch any pics.


We were hoping to swim around with the dolphins that we saw every day at the beach, but no luck. Braden and I had great fun struggling against the wind to get us absolutely nowhere!

Sunset on the beach

Although Rachel loved playing in the sand, she refused to go for walks in it. She's happy now because she's being held :)

Apparently our son has reached the goofing in every picture stage :)

And in the end, Braden had yet another malady to deal with, water in his ear that stayed for days!