emmy starts school tomorrow

We celebrated MeMa's 70th birthday this week.  

Her birthday was on Thursday, but Tuesday was the best day to get our whole crew together.  

Emmy had freshman open house on Thursday.  These sweet girls have been friends since 6th grade.  I can't believe they're starting high school. 

Jason and Bryce were invited to go offshore fishing with friends in Hatteras on Thursday.  They caught a few, but not as great as some of the days that boat had recently.  

We had one last family meal on Friday night before we sent Chase, the first cousin, off to college on Saturday. 

We headed to our local horse track on Saturday for wiener dog racing.  

We heard about the races last year but couldn't go.  We wanted to enter Callie this year but somehow missed the deadline even though I stalked the website.  We hope to enter her next year.    

We had dinner at Nana's tonight and went on a golf cart ride to wrap up Emmy's summer vacation.  She's not excited about starting school a week before Bryce.  

summer is winding down

Emmy goes to youth group with friends from school and they do one last summer event called Tribal Wars.  It kicked off this Wednesday night with color wars.   

Bryce went to Virginia Tech night with his buddies at the new CarMax Park where the Richmond Flying Squirrels play.  

Jason had a golf weekend with our school friends this weekend.  There are 8 guys, and they thought everyone was going to make it, but they were missing one.  Bryce and another son got to play on Friday since they were missing two guys. 

My neighbor and I went to see Leanne Morgan on Friday night and she was hilarious.  

The guys had a second round of golf on Saturday and were just missing the one this time.  They played again on Sunday too.  They had a great weekend catching up.  

beach week #2, my birthday and our anniversary

This second beach week came about because Emmy got invited to go with friends this week.  When she was asking if she could go, she was worried about missing my birthday.  I told her she was fine to miss but then decided if she was going to be at the beach on my birthday then I should also be at the beach on my birthday.  Thus, a trip was born!  We picked her up for my birthday breakfast and dinner. We got acai bowls at The Spot and they were so good. 

Birthday dinner pictures. 

Vacations are looking a lot different as the kids get older.  We enjoyed having Avery along for the week.

We're going to have some senior pictures taken of Bryce locally, but I really wanted a beach picture of him.  I was pleased how this turned out. 

These two had lots of bonding time. They threw the football, played beach putt putt, bocce ball, and even fished in Jason's kayak.  

We missed Emmy but she was having the time of her life with her friends. 

The two sisters each got to invite a friend to the beach, and I love that they all go to the gym together.  

They enjoyed the ropes course. 

Matching shirts 

They had a bon fire with smores on the beach. 

I love that they had this week together. 

My pretty girl. 

Today is our 23rd wedding anniversary.  We've celebrated anniversaries with dinner dates, solo trips and family trips.  Today we celebrated at the baseball field.  Bryce played at Longwood today, so we hiked the High Bridge Trail and went to a nice lunch between games.