4th of July!

It's official, we have a set Fourth of July tradition now. Each year the family converges on the great state of VA and celebrates the holiday. One thing I do love about our family is that we've always opened our hearts to friends and treated them like family. It is very special to come from a family who looks out for each other and regardless of our distance would crawl through fire to help one another. I think of my cousins more as siblings than cousins. I love them each dearly and each one is certainly his/her own person, we are all very different but we all love each other because of it. The festivities started on Friday, but our portion of the family had just driven back from the outer banks and we were a bit tired and not ready to party. Though Saturday we had a great time. Some of the ladies ventured out to Bluemont Vineyard to do a wine tasting. Aunt Joan and I have decided that this should become part of the tradition. And next year I think we're going to investigate a limo and multiple winery stops...thoughts ladies? And LISA YOU HAVE TO COME NEXT YEAR! I will drive you to Anthropology another time! Oh and the boys went golfing.

After that it was pool time and family enjoyment. The girls really came out of the "pool shell" this weekend. It started with Fiona venturing out in the pool in her inner tube and "floodle." She was a wild woman kicking around the pool. Then Luli decided she might leave the stairs if I held her inner tube tightly, within five minutes she was kicking around the pool yelling "LOOK AT ME, LOOK HOW GOOD I'M DOING." She was ridiculously proud of herself, and I was ridiculously proud also, she may actually learn to swim before she's 30!

Sunday we ventured back to Tom and Joan's in the afternoon for more pool, family, and fun. Then back to our house in the evening to take in the fireworks. Gosh I love my house, it is seriously the best seat in town for the fireworks. A few neighbors came by to join us and we laid out lots of blankets and pillows to get comfy. Patrick has pics of the fireworks, hopefully I'll get some from him soon (hint hint).

All the while we were missing a very important member of our family. Cousin Ryan, he's currently flying helicopters in Afghanistan and due to be back home in November. We miss him a lot but he surprised us all with a phone call on July 4th! We think of him every day and pray for his safety and that of all the armed forces abroad.

I know I have other pictures but I guess I haven't uploaded them yet.

OBX 2010

The last week of June thru the first week of July we ventured down to the Outer Banks for our ocean get away. This year it was a big family affair with my parents and my brother joining the fun. We had a lovely house on the ocean and a week to play in the surf. We did a lot of playing in the water and picture taking, but not a lot else. I'm going to upload some pictures into an album and put up here to the right to check out. In the meantime, here are a few of my favs!

Happy Father's Day

For Father's day this year we did exactly what Oscar has been wanting to do for awhile, take a trip to NYC. It's the firs time we have brought the girls and it was a lot of fun (no matter how skeptical I was regarding bringing them). We were in NY for a very short time, we arrived Saturday afternoon and departed Sunday afternoon. Saturday was lovely, we went to central park and had pizza in the sheep meadow, then walked through the park to see the sights, share some ice cream, and enjoy. The girls loved it, of course it's a park! After a lot of walking we got to the hotel and cleaned up for dinner.

Oscar wanted to go to this cuban restaurant in Jersey, we were staying over there. It was very good, but we got way too much food. After dinner we drove by Oscar's favorite view of NYC. I can't argue with him, it is a fantastic view. Luli passed out as soon as we left the restaurant, it was a long day for them and it was really late. Fiona on the other hand is always ready to party! So I stayed in the car with sleeping beauty (seriously a beautiful sleeping face) and Oscar took Fiona to see the view and take some pictures.













On Sunday our mission was to find the cemetery Oscar's grandparents were buried at and pay our respects. After some driving and asking at convenience stores, we found the cemetery and with the assistance of very nice people in the office we were guided to their resting place.
After that we had plans to do a few other things but the girls lack of sleep caught up with them and this picture is how the day felt, at least she looks cute when she's crying (in this pic)...Unfortunately the first reason we decided to go to NYC was because a lovely friend of Oscar's family had passed away. Lazlo was an amazing man who had survived so much in his life, including Nazi occupation, Russian occupation and finally life in America where he raised his family and friended the Santiago's in NY. We were not able to make the services however our hearts still ache for this loss and we think of Lazlo's wife and son daily.

CSA

This year we decided to become members of a local CSA. After researching many I decided to go with Great Country Farms because the membership also provided us with membership to the farm and bonus u-pick items each week. I thought it'd be a great activity for the kids through out the summer, and it really has been. We've been out to pick strawberries, tart cherries, black raspberries and soon we're off to pick peaches. The fruit that we've received in our boxes have seriously been the best fruit of my life. The strawberries were amazing, I'm not exaggerating, they were AMAZING. The peaches have been heavenly! But the best thing about the box is probably what Oscar worried about most. That we would get vegetables that we never eat. It's true we have gotten things that I have never made before. But it's been great, we've branched out! We've made ethopian kale called "Hamli", it was amazing. We made a "version" of my friend Monsio's grandmother's Liberian Collard greens, it was amazing. I made cabbage with beans and shrimp. I mean we are really enjoying the CSA. And much to Oscar's surprise and joy we have not wasted one single leaf of the share!

Luli's Preschool Graduation

Wow, I haven't worked on this blog in awhile, we have a lot to catch up on! Let's start with Luli's preschool graduation. Due to her being a winter baby, Luli had three years of preschool and all at the same school. This year her pre-k class worked hard to prepare for kindergarten. Luli is starting to read, has been introduced to each subject area, loves to go to school, and is a social butterfly. She's still quite sensitive when it comes to how others treat her and hopefully she'll remember that when it comes to how she treats others. The school has helped her bloom into a super smart lil lady, or as my Upstate NY roots want me to call her- WICKED SMART! Seriously this kid is smart, and I'm not just saying that because I'm her mom. As my father and mother say, she's thinking while the rest of the world is sleeping.

Anywho, the ceremony was so sweet. The kids sang songs for us and then the teachers talked about each of the children and what they wanted to be. Staying true to last year, Luli continues to want to be a gardener. Though she has now added on, a teacher, and an astronaut. Miss Dawn added how Luli has tirelessly fought to reinstate Pluto as a full fledged planet. It's true, she's on this crusade at home. Hopefully she'll continue her fight for the little guy.

We are so sad to close this chapter in Luli's life. And it is sad that we are also closing the book on Farm School. We loved the school for many reasons, but after so many years there the little things that nagged us grew in intensity. So we've found a new school for Fiona in the Fall also.

Fireworks, Neighbors and a 10k

Last night we enjoyed the big firework display for Herndon Festival. They have them on Thursday and a Saturday night of the festival, and both nights the display is pretty amazing but Saturday is certainly larger and more extravagant. The girls favorite are the fireworks with shapes, especially the hearts. Frankly I'm just impressed that you can make something explode in a certain shape. If my brain were so inclined I'd love to learn.

The girls were jazzed for fireworks since Thursday's display and they stayed up all day and night asking NON STOP when it would be time. Seriously at 2pm they were asking, umm ladies we need a little thing called NIGHT TIME! They were exhausted but they rallied. Let's recap, Thursday they stayed up until 10 for the fireworks, Friday they stayed up until 10:30 for the festival, Saturday they woke up at 6:30am and stayed up until 10pm for the fireworks. Fiona was laying on the blanket for the fireworks and I caught her eyes struggling to stay open, and as soon as the booms stopped she was OUT! Luli was still running around even though she was ridiculously tired. But this reminds me of the fact that Luli has two speeds, GO and SLEEP. There is no in between for her!

The fireworks were just another expression of how much I love our house and our neighborhood. Our front lawn has a bit of a slope to it, and frankly it's perfect for laying out a blanket and enjoying the completely unobstructed view of all Herndon Fireworks displays. Several neighbors were walking by and we invited them to pull up some lawn and join us. It was great, it was what I've been wanting from a neighborhood. Impromptu neighbor get togethers, I love it! I put the girls to bed and returned to our neighbors, we chatted for awhile and it was just great. We did stay up a bit late, which was super because Oscar was running the 10k on Sunday morning.

Which brings me to the present. Oscar ran the Herndon Festival 10k this morning. The girls and I went out to cheer him on. Man, another thing I love about our neighborhood! The race was running right by our intersection with the W&OD trail. I brought the girls out with their chairs and we waited for Oscar to come through. We were going to sit right at the end of our street but I figured Oscar would expect us there, and if we were up a little further at the trail it'd be a nice surprise to get through the finish. He did great and we cheered especially loudly for him!


Today we'll probably hit up the festival again to use up our final tickets and indulge in more unnecessary fair food. mmm fried dough!

Herndon Festival 2010

This weekend is the Herndon Festival. I have to tell you that this is yet another reason I love Herndon. The festival is free to enter, which is rare here in VA. The rides do cost tickets and that can run you a pretty penny. Thankfully, the girls are still small and can't ride and don't want to ride, the big ones. But every year we go to these festivals they are more and more interested in the excitement and rides. Last night I had class but Oscar took them. I called home when I was leaving campus (10:15pm) and they were just getting in bed! Luli told me everything they did, which sounded like a lot of fun but I wasn't able to understand her because she was so tired her words were not exactly clear. This morning Oscar wanted to work on the deck and lacked interest in spending another day at the fair. Me on the other hand, I couldn't wait!

The fair opened at 10 and we got there at 11am. We walked in with one of our neighbors who happened to also be going to the fair. We hit the potties and then bee-lined it for the rides. The girls rode all sorts of rides. But I do think the flying dragons were their favorites. Last year they wouldn't even go near the flying dragons at the Herndon Festival, and then at Great Escape in NY they went on a similar ride but wouldn't move the stick to go up and down, so they stayed down the whole time. THIS TIME! WOW, they were up and down more times than I could count.

After several rides, we took a break for lunch. A banana strawberry smoothie and pizza while we listened and danced to the band playing. Then it was back to the rides. Luli wanted to go on the Tiger slide, which was a big bouncy house slide, Fiona was too small so it was Luli-solo. Then we rode the merry go round and then the dragon roller coaster (which was much more gentle and fun than the roller coaster of hell we went on at Great Escape- I think my father and my backs are still sore from that one!). We called it quits after that and sealed the day with an ice cream cone. You could tell they were with me, because we each got our own...if a certain other family member were with us we would have shared.

Now we are looking forward to our front row, front lawn seats to tonight's fireworks display! You can see more of our pictures in our Summer Photo Album to the left.