Big Fun All Around

Who knew there could be more fun after vacation??

 We got down to business after vacation, and Matt got potty-trained!  Forgot how much work it is, but so happy that we are a diaper free house.  We even felt good enough to leave the house before the end of our 3 day bootcamp to take Dad to dinner on Father's Day!

 Time for swim lessons for Andrew

 Red Light, Green Light - splashing is awesome

Happy 4th of July

We finally decided to venture to the fireworks, and the boys loved it, quote of the night from both of them, "I not scared"!

Bucket List Craziness

I randomly had a bunch of things on my bucket list that I could take care of on our PA trip.  First up, see Amish country.  I didn't believe it actually looked like it does in the movies, but it does.  We drove down the street with house after house looking just like I imagined it.

 I didn't want to stop the car to take pictures, it just didn't seem right for some reason (however, holding up my iphone while driving by seemed ok)

 a young boy cutting the grass

 buggy parking, I kept wondering why the houses had garages, but after seeing this, it made sense

 Take the boys to Hershey, PA

The factory tour is free, so we tried that, along with a 4D movie, and a tour around town.  We didn't try the amusement park, but we might go back when the boys are bigger.  Matt saw a HUGE roller coaster, and said, "I go on that?" (seriously?)

Eat a Real Philly Cheesesteak

We stayed just outside of Philadelphia, so Brian and I took the train in one night to take care of this one.  We went to the famous Geno's (across the street from Pat's), it was yummy!

Sesame Place

Sesame Place is an amusement/water park that you can get a 2 day pass for, so we went on what we thought would be a nice day.  We left the 90's in Atlanta, to reach the 60's in PA.  I am positive that the four of us were the only people in bathing suits/shorts, every other person had on a jacket.  It started raining the second we walked in, but it stopped about 45 minutes later, we still had a blast!  The bad weather was actually awesome, no lines, and we rode everything a lot!

 Andrew is very excited to be here, really

 See, happiness!  Grandma Cindy got the kids matching sweatshirts (good thing, or the boys would have been soaking wet and freezing)

 Andy's first roller coaster.  He hated it while on it, but loved it when he got off.  Matt is our coaster guy, he wanted to go on everything, twice, but you had to be 3 to try this one.

 Of course the characters are everywhere

 Swings!  Matt just made the cut to ride these, I think his hair was sticking up.  Big thanks to Uncle Denis for riding with the boys, the swings are no good for Mom!

 Just like in Hollywood, you can match up your hands to all the character hands

watching one of the shows with Grandpa Mike, trying to avoid the rain

Wagner/Somar Vacation 2012

The family trip this year was to Pennsylvania, mainly to visit Sesame Place, but oddly enough, my bucket list had lots of to-do's in that great state.  We decided that driving would be the best/easiest way to accomplish what we have loving called "factory tour vacation 2012".  Lots of people and things made our trip possible.  We started out on Saturday morning and made it to Roanoke for dinner and sleeping.

 Thanks to Grandma Caren & PaPa Marvin for driving over to have dinner with us, it was a fun visit

 this is what happens when both kids want to sit on Dad's head, this might be the last vacation where either of them are small enough for Mom to be able to hold them

 Many thanks to the Jackson family for hosting us for lunch on Sunday afternoon.  It was the best to be able to break up our driving for a great lunch and visit with friends!  We really enjoyed watching the boys fight over all the pink toys!!

 Natalie and the boys being silly

Finally on the way home, this was our last rest stop before ending the night in Charlotte.

We have learned to make the road trip just as much fun as the vacation itself.  Some tips: a good hotel with a pool to kill time and energy, trip fairy visits to give the kids some much needed entertainment, taping a paper car to the car ceiling so the boys can see how much longer we have to travel, and the highlight from this year, finding a rest stop to have lunch that has a live cover band (Thank to the great state of W. VA for providing great music while we enjoyed a break)!

Memorial Day

We got the awesome opportunity to hit up Isle of Palms with 7 other families for Memorial Day this year.  We had a blast, who knew it could be so much fun to put 28 people in one house?

 showing support for a good friend from church who is battling breast cancer,

her husband organized this shirt campaign, where everyone who got a shirt, sent her a text on the day of her surgery

 brother/friend love with Brody

 so thirsty

 Daddy testing out his ocean skills (can't remember for the life of me what that is called)

much of our beach time was spent digging and building,

we had to abandon the beach on Sunday, the wind was blowing the sand way too hard, so we hit up the local water park instead, so fun!