Come on Irene

We are now waiting to see what happens with Hurricane Irene. Justin has to stay in NY for work, and the kids and I have decided to stay with him. We are not in a flooding or hurricane evacuation zone, so hopefully we'll be fine. We'll secure or bring in everything we have outside and load up on food, water, flashlights and batteries. It should be fun. 

In the meantime, for the past few weeks, we have been

taking swimming lessons,

enjoying first popsicles (that's just water),

dressing up as King Henry and Queen Elizabeth, 

watching a full-length movie (Ponyo) and only sobbing a few times,

trying new foods,

taking care of friends both old and new,

getting to know ourselves,

exploring the Children's Museum of Manhattan,

enjoying Central Park and apple cider doughnuts, 

falling asleep after a busy day in Manhattan, 

enjoying a picnic dinner at the playground,

and turning seven months old!

Henry now has two teeth and is so close to crawling!

A week in North Carolina

The kids and I had the good fortune of spending a week at my parent's beach house in Emerald Isle, NC. I always love my visits there, even if they don't worked out quite as planned. 

Two days after we arrived, my mom and I took the kids to the sound so Elizabeth could do some swimming (the ocean was too rough). I was wading while holding Elizabeth when I tripped and fell on a huge oyster cluster (aka an oyster rock). Somehow I managed to keep Elizabeth from getting hurt, but as soon as I looked at my leg, I knew I needed to go to the ER. At the ER, I had my wounds (four significant ones) cleaned and bandaged (not stitched since the cuts needed to weep out the dirt in them), got a tetanus shot, and a course of antibiotics. I also had to spend the rest of the week out of the water, but my parents were happy to help out. 

Here are my wounds (minus one on my hip).

The oysters I fell on; it was high tide when I fell and they were fully submerged.

And some oysters up close; they are very sharp.

Besides that, we

read books from the local library, 

played in the kiddie pool,

washed GiGi and Grandpa,

 hung out on the beach,

 visited the aquarium (which was awesome),

 posed as hermit crabs,

 played at the house,

 posed on the roof (the first two shots were taken by Elizabeth),

 tried on bibs,

 loved on Pecos,

and flew back home (E took this shot at the airport).