We took a day and explored Liberty Island and the Statue of Liberty. The weekend we were visiting was the official reopening of the statue after damage from a hurricane. Because of the re-opening there was high visitation, but we found that we could visit from the New Jersey side and get on and off the island easier. Julia had a hard time imagining where we were going although we described it. When we parked and she could look into the bay to see the Statue she pointed it out and exclaimed “I want to go there.”

The day was pretty hot so the girls were not excited about walking around the island to see the statue from different angles. Once we got inside and had some air conditioning they were more interested. We went up to the statue’s base and enjoyed the breeze and the view. After coming back down, we toured the museum and learned some cool facts about the statue. Emily was most fascinated by the repairs that have occurred over time. Julia enjoyed finding the life sized foot and face replicas.

We ended our visit with a bit of shopping and got our National Park stamps. We promised the girls each a “treasure” from our trip and Julia found hers here. The National Park has made a bison stuffed toy as a mascot for a conservation program. Julia fell in love and named it Honky. Honky the bison enjoyed traveling with Julia for the rest of the trip.

We spent several days visiting our cousins in Connecticut. There was LOTS of swimming time with jumping, flipping, splashing, and just fun. The girls wanted to keep up with their bigger cousins in the pool. There is no motivator to encourage swimming than trying to keep up with active and fun cousins. The weather was warm and sunny and made it a great time to hang out at the pool. We had several meals poolside so we could enjoy our time playing a little longer.

Monkey bread breakfast with four extra helpers!

The boys were great gentlemen to the girls. They were always great to open doors for the girls and to carry whatever the girls were holding. Very sweet! Together they built forts in the living room, played dress up, spy games, explored Lego sets, built with clay, and drew photos. Lots of fun just to watch their play with each other.

Loved this moment of Emily just hanging out with Caleb and him just letting her invade his space. Caleb is not fond of kissing and we discovered this when he exclaimed that Aunt Rachelle and Uncle Robby kissing was “unusual”. For the remainder of the trip we referred to all kissing as “unusual”. Maybe one day he will have a more favorable opinion of kissing.

We made a trip back to Stew Leonard’s to do some grocery shopping and just enjoy the fun store. Emily’s favorite activity in the store was dancing to the Chiquita Banana woman singing. The kids replayed her singing nine times dancing in the aisle each time.

This photo of the kids is from the last visit to Stew Leonard’s. It is great to see how all four kids have grown so much in the last two years.

What did you do for your summer vacation? We really hope someone asks Emily this question when she starts school in the fall because she has a lot of cool things to pick from. We combined visiting two sets of family into one vacation and a few sightseeing things between them.

First we drove to Connecticut to visit cousins. We did lots of swimming and a few sight seeing adventures including the Statue of Liberty. After leaving Connecticut we spent an evening and morning in Washington D.C. taking in a two museums and several monuments. Then, we caught a train in northern Virginia and travelled to Florida, sleeping one night on the train. The next part of our vacation took us to the kids’ Grandparent’s house in Miami and a visit with more cousins. We made one trip into the Everglades between rain showers. The last stop of the trip took us to Orlando to play and swim a bit more.

In total we traveled for two and a half weeks and saw 14 states and cousins. Julia traveled through two states for the first time. The best thing we collected in our travels were great memories of time that we spent together.

We stopped on the way home and celebrated a weekend at Jolie’s house. Grandma rode up with us and got to visit a bit longer. Mikayla was sweet to share her room with us. All the girls wanted to do was to play with Natalie and Dylan and swim in the pool. They got to do all of these things a lot. On Saturday Uncle Ken and Aunt Cindy came over for the evening and it was great to visit.

It is great when peer pressure pushes the right way. We had used this visit as motivation for the girls’ swimming class and now swimming with Natalie and Dylan wasn’t just a reward, but more inspiration. Emily enjoyed being able to jump into the pool at any point with Natalie. Julie refused to be left out of the fun and continued to build her confidence at swimming so she could jump in the deep part too. Dylan, being the lovable rambunctious boy he is, was a bit rougher in the pool and would push off of other people. The girls never seemed to mind his pushing and it seemed to make them better swimmers too. One of Mama’s favorite thing from the pool was watching Dylan and Julia swim underwater and be nose-to-nose looking at each other. Just a cute side note – Julia took to calling Nichole, Coaly. It is just her own special name.

Emily, Natalie, and Dylan – pool buddies. It has been so much fun to watch Dylan over the years become more interested in playing with the girls. It is a little tough being the only boy in the gaggle of girls, but he is doing great with them!

Uncle Ken started a game of throwing the little kids into the pool, for which they all lined up to take turns. The game evolved into Jennifer and Brett swinging the kids into the pool in turn. They loved that game too.

This is Julia’s favorite pool game . . . jumping in, getting out, and doing it all over again!

Dylan and Emily bonding over a little tablet movie watching. He was pleased to show Emily a Dragon movie (one of his favorite topics). They sat together enjoying it for quite a while.

Remarkably, Julia has decided that she likes dogs now. It was like some switch was changed and instead of worrying about if Max was in his cage, she was now wanting to know where he was. She liked to go and speak to him in his cage. She even would seek Max out to pet him. She has asked for a dog and has requested two boy dogs. She is quite insistent on the matter too. We will see, but Mama is pretty sure that when a dog comes into our family there will only be one.

Beautiful Beach, Beautiful Girls!

We try to go to the beach once per trip to Miami. It takes a little while to get to the beach so we try to make the most of it when we go. This trip it was just the girls, Grandma, and Mama at the beach. We set up our shade, got some photos, and then played in the water.

Julia kept trying to swim in the ocean like she did in the pool and she ended up with pretty red eyes. She just kept trying though. One game the girls played was to carry wet sand into the ocean and rub Grandma and Mama’s arms with the sand. It was like our own trip to the spa. Emily asked several times to go out in the deeper water with Grandma. For having simple cups to dig in the sand the girls just stayed busy and happy for a long time. Everyone seemed to enjoy the sunny, fun day tremendously.

Two flowers that Mama would pick!

Enjoying the sun and surf!

Our Ju Ju girl!

Sun-kissed water and girl.

Digging in the sand. The ocean was destroying as fast as they were building, but that didn’t deter them.

Our shady spot, but we didn’t spend much time there. While the day was hot, the water felt great!

Playing with Grandma in the ocean.