Anniversary #5

Jason and I just spent an amazing weekend at Sand Lake Country Inn celebrating our 5 year anniversary ... a week early. The Grammy was in town and we took advantage of the free child care and ditched her with the kids for a full 50 hours! That's a new record! It was officially the longest we have ever been away from the kids at the same time. It's pretty safe to say that we won't be waiting another 3.5 years until we do that again!

Some of you may remember that this little Inn has been a big part of our lives. This is where we were staying when Jason proposed, exactly 6.5 years ago today. We also spent our first anniversary there and a "babymoon" right before Alia was born. 

On our way to our weekend getaway, we both revealed that we hadn't had time to get the other so much as a card for our anniversary and decided that a weekend away was gift enough. Out of curiosity we looked up the traditional 5th anniversary gift and found out that it was wood ... and we were staying in the Timbers Suite at the Inn ... Now is that perfect or what? We couldn't have planned it better if we tried!

On Saturday we ventured out to find "our beach" where Jason proposed

That's my handsome hubby checking out the waves.

We ordered the "togetherness basket" from our Inn keeper who puts together such an amazing spread that we had enough left over to eat for dinner too ... sparkling cider, clam chowder, baguette, cheese, smoked salmon, watermelon, potato salad, chocolate truffles!

The weather was gorgeous that afternoon! When we returned to the Inn we hung out on the hammock in the backyard ... I relaxed, Jason snored :-)

That evening we finally cracked open a bottle of amazing champagne that we received as a gift far too long ago. Pretty sure our plan was to have it on our 1st anniversary, but pregnancies and babies and such prevented it until this year ... Woo hoo!!

(Next week I'll try to remember to post some wedding flashback pictures)

Outside Fun

It's FINALLY starting to ALMOST look like summer around here. Here are a few photos from one random beautiful day. We are going to have such a fun time this summer. I can't wait!

Max - Gymboree

Max has been doing Gymboree for about a year now and he's just about at the end of his run there. We'll finish up at the end of the summer before he starts "school" in the fall with sister. My mom has been in town for the past couple of weeks and I finally felt like I could take a few pictures of him there since I had another set of hands to be a spotter. He is a wild man there! He climbs everything and likes to be right in the middle of the action.

 Doing the "We Did It!" dance from Dora for us ... It's pretty hysterical!

Attempting to climb the mirror .. why not?

Pretty solid balance beam work if you ask me!

Playing peek-a-boo with Mommy

Max's current favorite activity at Gymboree is to climb into the middle of the inner tubes and make me stack them on top of him. He loves it!

Going for a ride with friends ... CHEESE!

Knock, Knock

Ding, Dong

Time for Gymbo to come out and play!

Max is usually the leader and the most vocal class member for this activity.

Alia's 1st Dance Recital

Alia had her first dance recital last week. As you can imagine, she was VERY nervous! She did an outstanding job at dress rehearsal, but froze a bit during the real show. She was the tiniest and the cutest little dancer up there though, no doubt about it! I did order a video that should arrive in 4-6 weeks. So, next time you see me, I plan to pretty much force you to watch it and tell me how cute my little girl is :-)

The highlight of the whole experience for Alia was that they gave all the little girls crowns, balloons, ribbons and a wand backstage after they performed. Her little face was just lit up when we picked her up from backstage. Then to make things even more fantastic, Daddy got her some flowers and we went out and had ice cream afterwards! A day can't get much better than that when your 3 1/2 I think. 

Alia's Dress Rehearsal

Alia did such a great job at her dress rehearsal this morning. I found out after the fact that she had a meltdown right before going on stage, but Miss Lynn has magical powers! I would have never known.