Camp Silver Pines

My cousins invited us to spend the weekend @ their family camp that's located in, well, kinda the middle of nowhere -about 1hour, 20 minutes from our house. We planned to go Friday night and stay over, but Jackson wasn't feeling well, so we just did a day trip yesterday. We had sooooo much fun - need proof? Check it out:

Me and my boys (Jerm's taking the photo) in front of Silver Pines camp



We went on an adventure ride through the woods - oh my goodness did we have fun!

The boys had a ton of fun riding on all the little ride-ons - the Gator, the 4-wheelers, the paddle boat...

Throwing sticks from the bridge - this was my cousin's dog, Max. He would jump from the bridge to chase sticks. I think we totally wore him out doing this. I wish we could have taken Gert with us, she would have had a blast.

Jude and his cousin, Xavier. These two are like 2 peas in a pod. They'll be playing soccer together this fall, so get prepared to see more picture of these 2 together.

If this weekend is any indication of our summer, it sure will be one filled with fun, adventure, love and friendship.

Onto the next adventure - Memorial Day picnic @ our house tomorrow. I'm sure many more adorable photos to post!

Story Hour

My mom and Jeremy have been taking turns taking Jude to Story Hour at the Lilly Library for the past school year. He participated in the end-of-the-year program on Wednesday evening. He was so darn cute!

Jackson attended this program when he was younger (I think he went 3 years in a row). We just love how much this program helps the kids learn basic things like ABCs, 123s, shapes, colors, etc.

Here's Jude saying his ABCs (we honestly never thought he'd get up in front of everyone with a microphone and do it, but he did):

Jude will go to this program next school year also (he will attend preschool M-W-F and story hour on Tuesdays).

Here are some more photos.

The Man of the Hour/Day

Congrats to Jackson who made his 1st Holy Communion today. We're so proud of him.

I'm not so sure what was happening in this series of photos, but I'm guessing Jeremy just wanted to get 1 nice photo of the boys and instead this is what they gave him.



Me and Jack

Jackson with Ga-Ga and Pop (who are also his Godparents)

Grammy Linda's cake for the celebration luncheon!

Just want to say thanks to all my family who made Jackson's day extra special for him. Thank you for coming to celebrate; thanks for the food, cake, support, gifts, etc!

It was a special day, indeed.



Happy Easter

I'd like to 1st give a little shout out to my work, Jackson's school, and Mother Nature.

It's Easter Monday and the sun was shining all day + I was off + Jackson was off.

= an awesome day. Couldn't ask for a better day off with the family.

It started off with some exercise with my buddy Kerri.

Then I came home and fired up the grill. We had veggie burgers, mushrooms, and hot dogs. We officially kicked spring off by having lunch @ the picnic table.

We then proceeded to spend about 3 hours outside doing everything from riding bikes to flying kites to digging in dirt to running through muddy ditches!

Man, we soooo needed a day like today!

Easter was super-nice. We spent most of the day @ my mom's. I took the boys for an egg hunt on Saturday:

They really cleaned up on the prizes!

Today's fun in the sun:

One of my faves of spring:

All by Myself

Jude loves it when we give him 'jobs.' I think he just feels so productive (and it really does keep him out of trouble too!). Last evening, he wanted to make a PB&J so badly - he kept going around asking, "Daddy, you want a PB&J?" "Jackie, you want a PB&J?" So I told him that he could make one and save it for lunch (but you'll see, in the photos, that he ended up tasting it immediately). That just about made his day!

Easter Egg Hunt

We took the boys to an Easter Egg hunt over the weekend (I was kinda glad it was indoors since the weather has been so yucky).

And they're off!

Both boys got a nice pile of goodies.

Can't have an Easter Egg hunt without the bunny showing up:

(I think this will be the last year Jackson' OK with getting a picture with the Easter Bunny)

And of course, we had to sample a few pieces (just to make sure it was OK!)

 

Philly

For the first time in my OT career, I went to the big, national OT conference. They move it around the country every year. The 2011 site was in Philly, so I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to go. My entire OT department, as well as 21 students, and numerous alumni went also! This is the conference where you get to meet the OTs who develop the theories that we teach our students and use in practice, along with the OTs that write our textbooks, and even the President of AOTA. Amazing opportunity!

Of course the entire fam went with me and we got an adjoining room with my friend/co-worker, Kerri and her kiddos. Needless to say, pleasure was mixed with business (although even the 'business' part of the trip seemed pleasurable - that's when you know you've picked the right profession!).

A 'quick' stop @ the Lego store in King of Prussia



We took an afternoon and walked from our hotel to Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell - it was only about 6 blocks from our hotel!

We got to have lunch with our friend, Bethany (who graduated from SFU last year)

And of course, just had some fun with friends!

Proof that I was working:

This was the President of AOTA speaking at the conference.