A month of visits

We finished up June with a visit to Uncle Mike and Aunt Alyssa's in DC (our last post) and we spent a lot of July visiting more family.  Aunt Mary Anne, Aunt Robin, Uncle Charlie, Great-Grandma, Dan, Kristian, Matt, Uncle George, Aunt Debbie, Dee, Adrienne, Aunt Patti, and a lot more people from Dave's family.

The girls marched with Aunt Robin in a parade.  Look at Catherine's silly arms.  She's so serious, even in play.

Samantha and Great Grandma have always had a special bond that goes beyond their love of bread.  Here they are vegging out at the end of a long day.

"Don't I look like a star in Mommy's new hat!?"  I think it fits her as well as it does her Mommy.

With new gardening supplies from Aunt Robin and Uncle Charlie they helped Nana water the flowers.

And then there were fireworks of course!  No 4th of July would be complete without them.

Their new life jackets make pool time amazing.  They are much more independent and they love it, and so does everyone else in the pool with them.  Catherine loves to jump in and be thrown from person to person while Samantha likes to spin in circles.  Towards the end of pool time they both manage to take off the jackets and try to float/swim on their own.  They sink, of course, but they try really hard and we're so proud of their courage.

Saying 'Good bye' to Aunt Mary Anne.  We had a lot of fun at the beach, even though there were no seashells.  (Samantha was very disappointed.)

Then Matt, Dan and Kristian came with their puppy Calli.  We had so much fun at the beach and playing with the puppies, and introducing Matt to the girls' favorite movie, Wreck it Ralph.

Grandpa bought a kite that we flew at the beach.  The girls were interested for a little but would rather play in the tide pools.  Samantha got really into it, looking like a little Ester Williams (from when they did synchronized swimming in the movies) in that suit.  Catherine just kept jumping from puddle to puddle.

Then, to finish it up, we saw Dave's side of the family at Ocean Isle.  The girls had a great time reading with Aunt Patti and playing dress up with Lana and Cora.  Catherine was especially excited to be included with the 'big girls'.

It was hard, and I couldn't possibly have hoped to get a picture of both sets of twins looking at the camera, but at least I got them all in the same place.  Here are Cade, Cole, Catherine, and Samantha making bugs in the sand with Aunt Patti and then squashing them.

In the meantime, we'll keep working on our potty skills (making slow progress, they often ask to go and are staying dry for longer and longer) and we've made it into toddler beds.  They don't go to sleep as quickly as we would like, but they do stay in bed (though there were a few times that Sam pulled all the books off of 2 shelves).  See you soon!