Summer living 2013

Today is the first day of October and summer is over.  It's autumn now - the leaves are falling, the mornings are crisp and jeans are back in the laundry circulation.

We didn't do a grand trip this year however we did do lots of fun things and some weekend trips within North Carolina. Here's our summer in brief:

Lucy and Fiona went to Disney World and Legoland for the weekend to celebrate her 7th birthday.

Henry spent 2 weeks at UNCW swimming lessons. He also spent a week at Kim's Gym doing soccer and bike riding.

Auntie Julie and cousins Edward and Cordelia visited us for 10 days.  We went strawberry picking a couple of times, visited the battleship and aquarium and played lots of board games.

We visited Asheboro Zoo (about 3.5 long hours away!) We had a great time and hope to go back soon.

Lucy spent a week at Wrightsville Surf Camp learning how to boogie board, visiting the turtle hospital and playing the ukelele. She also spent a week at Power Camp at Myrtle Grove Presbyterian learning how to do lego animation and a week at Engineering Camp at UNCW learning how critters construct their homes. She also read half the NHC library.

We spent the fourth of July at the Lake Waccamaw celebrations.

Henry turned 4 and celebrated with a monster truck party.  Andrew built a super duper 'carwash' sprinkler for the kids and constructed a mud pit.

 

  

He also got to visit a real monster truck and sit inside it.

  

We took a trip up to the Crystal Coast to visit the aquarium as well as Fort Macon. We had a memorable lunch in a picnic shelter on the sound watching the boats. 

Camped in the backyard several times as well as having lots of opportunities for a fire pit and toasting marshmallows or making smores. 

We also played lego a little. Just a little.

Attended lots of playdates at the pool, at the park, at the farm and at the fire station

We went bike riding, played in the back yard and grew our own tomatoes (over 1,000 so far)

We spent time with Robin including having a tea party! 

We made jam! Strawberry jam, strawberry syrup and frozen whole strawberries. Then blueberry butter. Tomato jam (divine!) Then from 90lbs peaches we made peach jam, peach butter, peach passion butter. Then Cara Cara orange marmalade. Now that it's fall we are planning on apple butter, apple sauce and apple jelly.

We ate ice cream. Lots of ice cream. At home. At Boombalattis. At the beach. Bucket loads.

We visited Carolina Beach State Park to see Venus Fly traps in their natural habitat. We bought a plant on the way home and then watched it catch a fly!

We farewelled the Lingenfelters! This is Henry's turn on the zipline.

 
The kids started school/preschool

Henryism

After being sent to bed straight after dinner for misbehaving Henry was lying in bed crying.
He was very distressed and shouted out  "I need to brush my teeth! I don't want plastic teeth!" After that statement how could we not let him brush his teeth!  Obviously all the stories about Grandad's false teeth had been remembered.

Hello!

It's January 30 and I still haven't posted all the wonderful videos of our Christmas lights! In fact some of the lights are still up on the house as Andrew hasn't had a chance to take them down (he had to build storage shelves first!)

We have had some unusually warm weather (75/25 degree days) and some unusually cold days too (27/-2 degree days).  What a roller coaster but it has been amazing to go to the beach a few times with the kids even braving the water. They loved getting out on the sand and running and running.  But even better was a spa bath afterwards.

We've been to Raleigh and back, enjoying some good gluten free Lebanese food along the way as well as visiting the lego store.  Lego is the new craze in our house and the dining room has been retitled 'the lego room'.

Lucy is reading chapter books voraciously and sometimes she doesn't speak to us for hours. I am loving this bookworm business. Henry celebrated his half birthday and now "all the chidlers are the same age!" ie all halves

There is lots of planning going on - for birthdays, vacations, and other projects.  So while there doesn't look like much is going on there is a lot of thinking happening.

We just celebrated Australia Day with lamingtons, lamb, ANZAC biscuits, pavlova and vegemite.  Now we are up for making valentines (42 of them between Henry and Lucy)

Thank you to the Martins and both grandparents for all the Australia Day goodies.  We had a fabulous time eating all the passionfruit. (Well not all, we have saved some for my birthday!)

Break ins

There have been a number of car break ins in our street this week! Fortunately the thieves are not actually breaking in but just getting into unlocked cars and stealing what they can find (including guns!)

My neighbour caught both thieves at 4am because he has a motion sensor that sets off a silent alarm.

Check out the news article here.

It's getting scary around here. Our house is even shown in the newsclip!

Hark! 2012

It's a mad creative wonderland around here at the moment in preparation for hosting our first ever Christmas party.  

We've called it Hark! 2012 because our lighting show is themed around the Christmas carol Hark the Herald Angels Sing. It's an outdoor party to view our musical & lights extravaganza and then enjoy some hot chocolate and treats in the backyard.

Andrew is still creating more light effects and new lighting shows.

I am creating signs, coffee cups and popcorn boxes as well as baking. (Thanks to Trader Joes opening (!?!!?!?) I have lots of other treats too)

As of today we have 78 people signed up to attend  and about half of these are kids! Check back later for more updates.

Christmas Tree 2012

We picked up our tree from Hugh McRae park again this year.  Felicity kept running around in the maze of trees and laughing when we couldn't find her. [Do you like the Christmas tree shirt i made her? Lucy wouldn't wear hers]

We had fun decorating the tree with Lucy taking charge of things and doing a good job! Both Felicity and Henry loved climbing the ladder even when Dad wasn't looking.

Bike riding

Over the summer we bought Lucy and Henry new bicycles because they had outgrown their old ones.  

Lucy, whilst she has a rather large bike, is still riding with training wheels and just doesn't have any balance.  

Henry has great balance and was not good at peddling.  So he has been sitting in the burley with Felicity instead of riding his super cool neon orange Tony Hawk bike.  But a week or two ago he gave it a go and went on a really long bike ride to Anchors Bend and back. 

Go Henry!