The Fire Station

Today was the annual open house at all the Fairfax County fire stations. Noah and Sophia went over after gymnastics. We've done this now for the last 3 years, but Noah still really enjoys it. His favorite part today was watching the ladder go up on the truck. I just love this picture of the two of them. So sweet.

Gymnastics

Noah and Sophia have been taking a Saturday morning gymnastics class over at the Lee District Rec Center. I usually forget to bring my camera, but had it in my bag this morning. Noah is really enjoying it, and we love Ms. Rachel, his teacher.



Here are some videos from this morning's class. The first is during their warm up and the second is Noah doing a forward role. There are usually several other boys in the class, but none of them were there today except for Noah.

Grandma Jean Visits

Grandma Jean left us today after a 2 plus week visit. The house will feel pretty empty without her. The first picture above is one that Noah took. Pretty good for just playing around with the camera. The second is from our trip today to the fire station open house.

Burke Fall Festival

We spent Sunday morning at the Burke Fall Festival with Evie, Sophia and their respective parents. It was a beautiful day after a week of non-stop rain. We had meant to go the previous weekend, but it would have been a mud pit.

Noah went on his first ever pony ride. He looks very serious.

He enjoyed this roundabout ride a bit more than Sophia did.

And no trip is complete without the big slide.

Outer Banks Vacation 2011

We had a wonderful-- though unfortunately abridged-- vacation down at the Outer Banks of North Carolina at the end of August. Hurricane Irene came through there a couple days before we were scheduled to go down, and OBX was evacuated. We were supposed to go down on the Saturday, but weren't able to get there until the Tuesday because of some of the damage done, specifically to the one and only road up to the town where we were staying. But in the end, we did get there and had 3 and half days of fun at the beach with our friends.

Noah LOVED the beach. He really loved playing in the waves, but also enjoyed digging in the sand with his friends. The hurricane left the surf pretty rough, so he couldn't really go swimming in the ocean, but that was fine.

We plan on trying to do an OBX trip every summer, at least while the kids are young, because it's such a nice and easy vacation. It was great to go with friends. Noah loved sharing a room with Greydon-- that might have been the highlight for him, actually.

Summer Recap

I've been really remiss this summer in my posting on Noah's blog, and in picture taking... so here goes my attempt to recap on some of our summer events. I'll do a separate post on our trip to the Outer Banks at the end of August.

One major event that I haven't posted about is that this blog will be changing names in February from Noah to Noah and Zachary. Noah is going to be a big brother. Of course, I don't have a scanner, so I'm unable to scan in the ultrasound pictures. Oh well, everyone knows ultrasound pictures look like fuzzy gray blobs anyway.

OK, looking at the very few pictures I have from this summer... I really did not bring my camera with me often. I'll have to do better in the fall.

Not really an exciting picture, but I only have a couple dud pics from Greydon's birthday party. Noah has become a huge fan of cheese pizza in recent months, so this is definitely his favorite meal these days.

These pictures are from Sienna's birthday party. Sienna had a wonderful jump house set up in the back yard, complete with a face painter/balloon artist. Noah had a fantastic time!

And, these pictures are from my birthday. Evie looks like she's trying to escape.

Darren and I got Noah a bike for his birthday. Unfortunately, the summer was extremely hot, so there weren't a lot of opportunities to ride it, but we did get in some bike time. This was a really fun day out bike riding with Greydon.

Swimming Lessons

Noah and Sophia had their first day of swimming lessons today. They were great in the pool with the their teacher, Ms. Kristin. I really want him to take lessons because he has absolutely no fear of the water. Usually he goes in with us with water wings (we call them "swimmies"), but these lessons are to get him used to being in the pool without them. He loves to be thrown and go entirely under the water and bob back up, but that's all with the water wings on. It's definitely time for real lessons. We'll see how it goes, but maybe we'll need to do private one-on-one lessons at some point.

One of the things they learned today was how to sit at the side and then turn over onto their stomachs to slip into the pool.

The teacher also tried to show them how to be comfortable on their backs.

Noah seemed a little rigid.