NATS GAME WITH DAD

Sterling took Dellin and Sterling Henry to a National baseball game. They went with Matt, Theo, and Ida. The boys had been looking forward to this all weekend and were so excited to go. They got ice cream and new hats at the game. I think Little Man's face in the picture sums it up.

I stayed home with the two babies. Gouverneur was pretty sad when he realized that he wasn't going, so we went and got frozen yogurt. He was pretty happy with that arrangement. The babies went to bed early, and I spent the night sewing. Everyone had a great time.

Mt. Vernon with Josh and Laura

The last thing we did with Josh and Laura was visit Mount Vernon, George Washington's home. This is our number one favorite thing to so in the DC area. The house itself is beautiful and the grounds are amazing and there is lots to do and see. We spent the day here with Josh and Laura and had a great time.

They have lots of animals to see. The sheep are usually the favorite. Sterling Henry, Dellin and Bryn had a lot of fun trying to feed and pet them.

We sat here and ate lunch and relaxed for a bit. The Potomac river is behind us.

Dad showing the boys grain and making big plans for the future.

All the kids took turns in the stroller.

Israel and Mya. Sterling Henry and Bryn

Uncle Josh is a lot of fun.

We had such a great trip with Josh and Laura. My boys were in heaven to be with family and have cousins staying at our house.We all were in a a bit of a funk for a few days after they left.

 Thank you for coming to see us.  We love you and miss you!

ZOO TO SPACE, ALL IN ONE DAY.

The National Zoo is always one of my favorite things to do with my kids. It's free, fun and super educational. We love it when our visitors want to go there with us. We had a great time with Josh, Laura, Bryn, and Mya.

The big kids.

It gets pretty hot walking around and my boys love the water misters. They ran through this one with Bryn and got pretty drenched. They also got to touch a zebra skull. Pretty cool.

The sea otters and seals.

After a long, hot day at the zoo, we headed home to cool off and let the babies nap a bit. After naps, we headed out to the Dulles Air and Space Museum. We never get tired of seeing the space shuttle.

 

Josh and I being matchy-matchy again. I think my boys were in both of the strollers half of the time.

Another great day.

Great Falls.

After an afternoon in the pool, we stopped by the EQ social for dinner and then headed to Great Falls in Maryland. This is probably one of my most favorite places to take visitors. It's close and really beautiful. Josh and Laura had heard about it from a friend so we were all excited to go. The weather had cooled off a bit and the sun was going down. Perfect evening.

The falls are part of the Potomac river. They have a nice board walk out to the falls, with one bridge that always freaks me out with kids. Bryn and Sterling Henry held hands which was really cute.

 

Josh, Laura, Bryn, and Mya. It's hard to believe my baby brother is this grown up. Cutest family. 

After looking at the falls, we walk along the canal. Josh and I with our matchy-matchy strollers. And Sterling and Little Man. 

The sunset was perfect on the way back to the cars.

 

Perfect ending to a perfect day!

PLAY DAY.

Saturday morning, Laura and I went to a bunch of yard sales. We made a haul and had a lot of fun. That afternoon was pretty hot so we busted out the pool in the backyard. The kids were entertained for most of the afternoon.

Uncle Josh and dad were right out there in the mix with them. The kids loved it.

Mya didn't spend much time around the pool. And when she did, she got water thrown in her face. Thanks Gouv! Lucky for him, she didn't mind too much.

Laura and I sat under the shade and just watched the kids play for all afternoon. It was super relaxing and fun. Israel and Mya are just four months apart. Cutest babies. I sort of think that Mya could pass as my baby. Don't you think? (Wishful thinking maybe.)

When it got too hot to handle, the dads busted out ice cream cones for the kids. There is never a better time to eat ice cream than when you're outside, already wet and dirty. They all loved their cones.

FIRST FAMILY HIKE (SNP)

Sterling does a decent amount hiking with the scouts since he's the Scout Master of our ward. After his last hike with the scouts, we decided to take the boys on a hike. And there is no better place to go than Shenandoah National Park. We had driven through there before in the fall, and that's where Sterling went black bear hunting, but we'd never taken the boys hiking all together before. We talked it up all week and the boys were super excited to go on Saturday morning. 

We found a good trail that was one mile up and one mile back with a pretty good incline. We started out having the three big boys walk and I carried Israel in the carrier. We hoped that Gouverneur could make it the whole way, but we weren't entirely sure. He took off and never looked back! He was all business.

At one point he got a bit a head of us and then freaked out when he saw other people behind him. He wanted to be carried the last 100 yards, but other than that, he was a machine. Everyone that saw him, commented about how cute he looked walking up the trail.

The view from the top was pretty amazing. You could see all around and the boys really loved it.

Sometimes it's still hard to imagine that one day these little boys are going to grow up to be big men like their dad. They all look so small in these pictures. I'd like to keep them this size forever if I could.

My men. Both big and little.

Here we are at the car after we'd finished. The boys did such a great job and were really worn out.

We bought the yearly pass to SNP and look forward to lots more hiking trips this year.

Fossils and Stratford Hall with Grandma Fillmore

We had a pretty relaxing trip overall which Grandma Fillmore was here. We did get down to Stratford Hall one day to tour the house and look for fossils. It turned out to be a lovely day and the beach was practically empty, which is always nice.

We set up chairs on the beach at let the boys run wild. It's pretty rare to be out and about and have no one around. Here's grandma with and her fossil crew.

More of the crew.

Grandma got in of some fossil action. Here she is finding her first (or second) tooth. She loved the whole thing. The boys found this grimy, wet ball that they became obsessed with. Little Man has it here.

Dellin and Gouverneur helping their dad find teeth.

After we spent a few hours on the beach, we headed over to the house. Dad and Grandma took the house tour, and Little Man got to go with them. I toured the grounds with the little boys.  Little Man took this picture right outside of the house. Dad and Grandma Fillmore.

Here are all the boys with Grandma outside of Stratford Hall. This picture is great for lots of reasons. The top reason is definitely the fact that Gouverneur and Israel are in their pajamas. Awesome.

There were tons of daffodils that had popped up all over. Gouverneur loved walking through/on them. 

Such a cute boy in his pjs and rain boots.

Here are the finding from our fossilizing day. I'm still always amazed that these are shark teeth from millions of years ago. Amazing!

 

We had a great day with Grandma Fillmore. It was fun to take her to look for fossils and to see the boys in their element. 

Fossil Finding with Dad and Grandpa Fillmore

We love going fossil hunting. There is a place in Pennsylvania that Sterling has been dying to try. We have always looked for shark teeth, but this place has more of plants and ferns. He was supposed to have a Scout campout that fell through, so on Saturday he took the two older boys and Grandpa out to go look for fossils. I stayed home with the babies and Grandma Fillmore

On the way out there, they stopped by Gettysburg and looked around. Naturally the boys loved the cannons.

There is a really tall tower that you can climb up and look all around the battlefield. Here's Dad and Grandpa with the boys at the top. The view is beautiful. (Don't mind Dellin's pjs. I put those on him as an under layer on cold outings.)

Then they made there way to the fossil site. It was a bit of a walk, and they met a guy along the way with this ATV. The boys got to sit on it and try to drive it.

They found a lot of cool fossils and had a really great time. Here are the boys lunching.

This picture of Dellin wins for being the cutest picture of any outing ever. Dellin was pretty tire and towards the end of the day, he came and sat down next to dad, and just leaned his darling little head on dad. Grandpa snapped this picture for us. Thank you, Grandpa.

The boys got home pretty late and everyone was worn out and tired, but we still wanted to look at their findings.

The boys were really excited to show us what they found. Sterling is so good to give them their owns buckets and let them bring home anything they want. Best dad!

Here is a picture of just one of the many fossils they found.

It was a great day, made even greater by having Grandpa Fillmore there. Grandma and I spent most of the day relaxing. It was a whole lot of fun!