Fun in costumes!

Early in September, both kids received new costumes. Natalie was given a bunch of hand-me-down costumes from her friend Zabby, and Henry (who was jealous of Natalie now having half a dozen new costumes) was allowed to pick our two costumes at CostCo (as he only had one before then). This led to a costume photo shoot (which I still have to finish editing!), as well as lots of costume wearing for playtime. Over one weekend, I took these videos and wanted to share them here :)

First up: Jedi Jasmine battles Darth Vader!



Second: Kylo Ren shows us all his sensitive side, using the keyboard.

Disney World: Fun at the pools

Finally, I got to our Disney photos! Amazingly, I edited everything both while on the trip, and pretty quickly after we got back, so these photos have just been sitting on my computer for two months. Time to finally show them to everyone!

First up here on the blog: photos from the underwater camera, which obviously didn't require any editing. But, they did require some organizing, and I needed to find my favorites.

I used this camera in two different pools on our trip. Our first night at Disney we stayed at a Doubletree Suites (using my Hilton points), and since we didn't have tickets to a park that day we took the kids out to the pool once we'd unpacked. While the hotel wasn't the nicest, the pool was pretty decent!

Next to the pool was a splash pad, which we all had fun running around in. Also a good place for some selfies!

That night we took the kids over to Disney Springs for a little shopping and dinner, then the next morning packed up to go to our hotel for the remainder of our trip: the Swan & Dolphin. I'll have more pics of it in upcoming posts (because man is that resort gorgeous!), but since I'm focusing on pools, let's just show the pool for now, ok? Here's one side...

And the other side!

It came complete with a waterfall.

And even a slide, which we all enjoyed. Henry had never been on a water slide before, since he was previously too short to go on the water slide at our water park. I was worried he was going to be scared, but that kid was a natural!

Henry loves that he's still light enough for us to throw - Evan and my dad do a much better job than I can, so he loves having them launch him in the air. I love capturing him in mid air!

Natalie gets frustrated sometimes that we can throw Henry more easily, so Evan gave it his best too. I think Natalie enjoyed it!

One last toss in the air for Henry on our last pool visit...

And Natalie, instead of waiting to be thrown, threw herself in the pool and let me get the perfect shot!

You know it's a great vacation when just the time in the pool is fabulous for everyone. Can't wait to share the rest of our time there - Magic Kingdom, Epcot, and Hollywood Studios...and of course the fabulous Swan & Dolphin resort!

South Carolina July 2016

In July, I spent a few days in South Carolina for work. I had planned to drive around the state a bit, but ended up staying in Charleston as I wasn't really able to find visits elsewhere that time of year. I had a busy couple of days in Charleston - despite the ridiculous humidity, I found it a very lovely place to visit, as I'd been told!

My plane to Charleston was small enough that we had to walk outside to board. I took this shot of the plane as I got on, with the lowering clouds overhead.

My hotel was quite nice; here was the atrium inside. And just around the corner was a neat little "alley" with about 4 restaurants; I chose to have dinner at this one. Very yummy seafood!

After my visits the next day, I took a nice long walk through downtown, through some spitting rain and again, much humidity, but it was worth it to enjoy this dinner during happy hour!

This was a shot of my hotel (on the left), from the park next door. The light was just stunning!

After my visits were done, I drove a couple of hours south to Hilton Head to visit my in-laws. I didn't have visits scheduled, and still had an overnight before my flight home, so instead of working from the hotel room for a day, I decided to visit them and work at their house! Along the way, I stopped at this little store and picked up some local cider. It was so delicious!

That night, I went with Lynn and Doug to a lovely dinner. Afterwards, we walked along at the marina - sunset was beautiful!

 We then drove to a nearby shopping center/park in order to get some frozen yogurt, and further watch the sunset over the swamp. So beautiful!

And, I have to quickly show off one of my favorite pairs of leggings currently, which I wore home the next day. So bright and colorful, and they have hidden owls on them!

New hair!

Gah! Another stretch of going more than a week without posting. Every time I think I'm going to do better ("I'm not traveling this week, I'll post every night!"), I have an exhausting week, or things going on at night, or I just don't feel like typing...and so I don't post! This is making me SO far behind. I still have a couple of posts from July, our Disney trip, 4 posts from August, and a couple from September. While I guess it really isn't that much, since we keep doing new things the list doesn't seem to get any shorter. Guess I can try to make it a priority to get a few of those done this week, huh?

Anyway, I'm going to skip all of that summer stuff to finally show photos of something Natalie and I did recently - new hair! We went a couple of weekends ago and got haircuts. Here's Natalie's before and after - isn't she adorable? Look how neat, clean, and grown up that haircut makes her look. She actually wanted to go even shorter (like almost a chin-length bob), but I have to have her hair long enough to put up for dance class, so this was about as short as I was willing to have it go. I think she's ok with it!

 And, here's my before and after! We took off a bit more than I had originally intended, but it was important to get rid of the bottom that was a completely different color from the rest. Taking off those last 3-4" really made a big difference!

 Why was it important to take off the bottom part that was such a different color? Well, about 10 days later (a week ago now, 10/4), I went back and colored my hair! Before and after is below.

Look at that purpley-red! And the gold highlights in there too. I absolutely love it! My stylist, JJ, did such a fantastic job - this is absolutely the fall hair color that I wanted.

This is very different for me (I don't normally do much adventurous with my hair at all!), but I'm really glad that I went for it. Hopefully it will continue to look as nice as it grows out, too! If I can't go full mermaid hair (and really, I'm not into the amount of bleach and work that would take), then I'll settle for this, which I think suits me better anyway :)

OBX 2016: Fourth of July!

And just like that, we celebrated our last Fourth of July at my parents' house at the OBX. It was bittersweet - we had a wonderful time, but it was also a bit sad knowing that it was our last official 4th there, at my parents' house.So, we filled the day with lots of activities! As I said in my previous post, we took a dolphin tour boat that morning, and then had to figure out what to do the rest of the afternoon before cookout and fireworks. Well, my aunt helped us with that - she sent a bunch of water balloons for the kids, which Dad and Evan were great about filling up while the kids had fun throwing them at each other out in the driveway. I loved capturing the water splashes, and their faces!

 

This one actually ended up being my favorite, and I took it with my iPhone! Edited on instagram, I just love the action, the smile on Henry's face, and the water splash.

After our cookout, we went outside to do some fireworks & sparklers in the cul-de-sac at their house. The kids love their sparklers!

I then put together this fun collage on my iPhone. The app Layout is awesome! Also, my leggings have fireworks on them - super soft and perfect for the holiday.

That night, we decided to take the kids down to the beach again to see fireworks. Last year, Dad, Carrie, and I took them, but we weren't too close to the fireworks so the beach wasn't too crazy. This year, Evan, Dad, and I took the kids, and we chose a location closer to the pier where the fireworks went off, and hoo boy was it crowded and nuts!

But we did enjoy the fireworks - the show was pretty spectacular, despite the crowds.

In this video you can clearly see how many people were around us!

All in all, a really great Fourth of July. So glad we were able to be there!