celebrations

Jason's birthday was on Wednesday so we took him out to lunch at one of his favorite places!

We had family and friends over today to celebrate some more!

We attended Dave's investiture on Thursday night.  

We had a fun night out celebrating the Honorable Judge Dave Caddell.

A little girl Bryce has been in class with for the past two years celebrated her birthday yesterday.  Bryce was glad to have a fellow boy classmate there in sea of girls!  

The party was at a local cupcake bakery.  The kids got to decorate and take home four cupcakes.

All the celebrations wore this girl out!

vbs

Bryce had tennis camp in the morning last week and then the kids had VBS in the evenings.  I didn't get any pictures during the week, but I got a few from the closing program on Friday night.  Here is Emmy's group singing on the stage (she's to the right of Jason).

And Bryce's group.

We have a family at church that rents an ice cream truck to celebrate after the closing!

Bryce and his best buddy, Thomas. 

This is their fourth VBS together.

tennis camp

Last week was Bryce's first week of summer vacation and his first camp of the summer.  He attended a tennis camp last summer and loved it, so we signed him up for it again this year.  He had tons of fun so we bought new racquets and went and played on Saturday morning.  

This camp has levels like karate and since Bryce had participated before, he got to test for his orange ball this year!!

Ice cream celebration on the last day.  Emmy sat through four 2 hour sessions so she earned a popsicle too!

Tomorrow he's off to baseball camp!

all the other pictures I found while catching up

Sweet babies with their daddy on Father's Day!  He's got a birthday tomorrow so we'll be doing lots more celebrating this week.

This sweet girl lights up my world.

Bryce and Thomas had a fun play date right before school was out.

Emmy is quite the diva!  She always has the best style.

Look how much my big boy has grown over the school year.  He had a wonderful year, but I sure am glad to have him home with me for the summer.

A good friend of ours was in town this weekend so we rounded up the crew for a fun breakfast out on Saturday.  

I am so thankful for family and friends and appreciate all the time we get to spend together.

a fun start to summer vacation

Friday was Jason's day off and it was Bryce's first day off from school so we had a fun day planned!  We had some bad storms come through Thursday night that knocked out power (that didn't come back on until Saturday night) so it was nice to have a reason to be away from the house!

Let's Go O's!

Our baseball loving boy!

We went to the game with another family from church.  Emilie is from Canada so her family was excited to watch the Blue Jays play.  They ended up seeing a great game and win for their team!

Must have ice cream at a baseball game!

Daddy's girl.

There was a nice fireworks display after the game!

The traffic getting to and from Baltimore was horrible, but the time spent with family and friends was lots of fun.

undefeated season

Bryce had a wonderful baseball season!  His team went 14-0 for an amazing undefeated season.  Bryce has really grown into such a great ball player this year!

The head coach arranged for the team to have a pizza party at the party pavilion at our local double a stadium.  After the party, they got to go out on the field for a couple treats.

Their names were read over the intercom and they received their trophies on the field.  

What a special experience.  

Bryce loves having his daddy coach.

Time for the National Anthem.

The boys got to stand with the players during the National Anthem and they got a few high fives!

It's not a baseball game without ice cream.

Our favorite Angels player.

Congratulations on a wonderful season, Bryceman!

luray caverns

After an emotional week, we decided to go forward with a family trip we had planned.  Our vacation bible school theme this year is Cave Quest.  We thought it would be fun to take the kids to Luray Caverns to help them get excited and informed about the VBS theme.  

I'm pretty sure I visited the caverns as a kid, but Jason had not.  He was just as excited as the kids.  I just love this picture of the reflection of the stalactites in the small pool of water in the cave.    

It was so nice to have this time away as a family.  We went with our friends the Lassiters, but I don't have pictures of us all.  

The kids had a great time and they were amazed by these natural structures.  

The "eggs" (more like oyster shells with pearls) are a famous site in the caverns!

After the cave tour, we did a maze outside and the kids had to find 4 goals to get the secret message.  This was tons of fun!

Even in the midst of tragedy, we're trying to keep things as normal as possible for the kids. They miss Pap very much, but they're learning to cop with the new normal.  

rest in peace

Monday brought the most devastating news of my life.  I was at Walmart doing my weekly grocery shopping when my mom called at 8:15 to tell me she had called the rescue squad for my dad.  I grabbed Emmy out of the cart and left my groceries in the middle of the store and raced to their house.  I got Emmy squared away with a friend while the paramedics did all they could and transferred him to the hospital.  It wasn't long after we arrived that that told us they weren't able to save him.    

This past week has been a struggle of emotions as well as wondering about the unknown.  We are  trying to wrap our brains around this and we're leaning on each other and our faith as we navigate these horrible unfamiliar waters.  We held a small memorial at my house on Thursday and it was everything my mom had imagined.  

At the end of the night, I had the kids write a message on a balloon to send off for Pap.  They really enjoyed this and it was a great way to include them in remembrance of their grandfather.  

My mom and I have been so touched by the outpouring of love and support from her neighbors, our friends and our family.  

We thank you all for loving us through this.  It is the hardest obstacle we've had to face as a family and it will definitely take a while to heal.  We are thankful for the many memories we have of Pap and we will surely keep him in the forefront of our minds.  

summer always starts before school is out

So many people consider Memorial Day the start of summer.  The fact that pools open, it's warm outside, and the sun stays up longer make it feel like summer, but the reality of two more weeks of school still looms!

Bryce had his last play performance on Wednesday so Emmy and I went and watched and picked him up early and surprised him with a trip to Nana's pool.

Jason was off on Friday and Emmy never takes a nap when he's home.  Clearly she needed a nap, at Target!

This girl can sleep anywhere.  I finally went back through my Instagram pictures and gave some of them a the hashtag #whereemmysleeps.  It's amazing to me where she can sleep!

Nana had told us she wanted to go to a Squirrels game with us this year so we brought her along for Jason's work night out at the Diamond!

We had a great night and even ended it with fireworks!