Guita's Visit

Guita arrived the same day of the Olympics opening ceremonies.  And yes we are Olympic junkies. So this trip (not on purpose) was planned almost perfectly. I say almost because I had to put my mom on a plane before the closing ceremonies and she did not get to watch them:( But for the 2 weeks she was here we were true Olympic junkies. Thankful for our DVR! We were up late each night, speeding past commercials and unnecessary fluff pieces to see the competitions. By the end of her trip, if we ended up watching the Olympics "real time" it would slightly frustrate my mom! Here we are the day of her arrival, a little different Friday night ritual for us, not a movie, but still fun!

 Olympic torches all around

 Sebastian was really excited about Finn McMissle's flag

 All Smiles

The next day Ramon and I had a surprise birthday party planned for Guita. Family and friends gathered from NOVA and Richmond and Fredericksburg to celebrate. With so much running around I really did not take a lot of pictures...

 Home made Peanut Butter Cup Chocolate Cake, it was AMAZING!

That same weekend that Guita arrived, was opening weekend for the Fredericksburg Agricultural Fair. On Sunday they had a Monster Truck show. We were so there! To our surprise they also had freestyle motorcross. It was HOT but the boys (and I include the 6 foot one in this group) enjoyed the display of wheelies and doughnuts and one-handed superman's and heart attacks! 

After the show we walked the fair and saw a race car

 We found the animals, I fell in love with this cow and her bell :)

 And then we found TRAINS, in A/C

During the week we re-cooperated from such a fun packed weekend and traveled to Richmond to have dinner with Ramon, Kyla, and kids. We got this special treat!!!

The following Saturday Eddie gave Guita and I a kid free day!! WOOHOO!! We headed north to get together with the NOVA family:)

On Sunday Ramon and Kyla traveled with crew back to the 'Burg for a family day at Kim and Bill's. In an earlier post you saw videos of Vince and Alonso on this day.

After a day full of swimming Vince passed out on the living room floor.

On Wednesday we hit the road south to go and celebrate Tennyson's birthday. When Eva arrives she will be  so out numbered!

The remainder of Guita's trip Eddie and I spent in bed, literally! If Guita had not been here to take care of the boys, I can't even bare to think about it! On Sunday Eddie and I had recovered enough to be able to take charge of our kids again and take Guita to the airport.  Eddie took this opportunity to introduce to boys and I  to Gravely Point.

July

I thought July was pretty quiet and that we did not do much, but as I review pictures to prepare this entry I am amazed at how much we actually did. Yes we stayed put in the state of Virginia, but there is enough to keep us busy here!
4th of July was celebrated from the 1st. We did special crafts and I introduced the boys to the joys of the musical 1776. Our dear friends Amanda and Craig came over for dinner and "fireworks", what we did not count on was Vince crashing out at 7pm... so that cancelled our plans to go and watch fireworks live and I had to settle for watching them on TV, such is life with a 2 yr old.

our eagle handprints in process 

 the boys under their eagle handprints

 snakes

my stunning boys

 July 5th, awake and enjoying sparklers

We got to visit with the newly weds and play on the river on a hot day.

We had fun with our primo baby Alonso. And yes his name is Baby Alonso. I wonder how long that will last. Will he be 15 years old and my kids still call him baby Baby Alonso like we call our primos the nick names we dubbed them as little kids like Faci, Nanu, Tatata?

July 14th was the annual Decades Party in Atlanta. We had planned on going but traveling in June used that budget. The boys and I dressed in our yellow for the party to show our support from VA. And then The boys had a boys night with daddy and mami headed north to watch a former student permfor the lead in Legally Blonde and reunite with some of her girls:)

Our local library has a story time for preschoolers on Fridays, and so we have taken advantage of this program and made it part of our routine. We go to Alphabet Soup and check out books every Friday. This particular day the kids had dancing time with ribbons, and they had a blast.

 

this day we were joined by some friends and after Alphabet Soup was over they ran around playing Spider-man and his Amazing friends!

 After the library we had to run an errand to the John Deer tractor store. This is never a quick stop. As we walked their grounds we found Frank!

Our evening routine includes daddy reading 2 or 3 library books to the boys before putting them to bed. I took a quick picture of this special moment. The librarians have no doubt that our house is all boys. Our books are trucks, trains, planes, and a random animal book that mami throws in for some variety!

June

June was a blur. My dad stayed with us for a week. During that week we also traveled to PA for Stephanie and Mark's wedding... while I was running around with the bride the boys were enjoying the trains. The 4 day trip ended with the amazing wedding of the year! Here are a few pics.

After that weekend Eddie said to me "Carmen, please do not make any new friends that are single." I laughed back and said "Honey I hang my gloves up with Cleatus, that type of dedication takes years to build, you have nothing to worry about!" 

We only had a couple of days to recover from the wedding before we went camping with our dear friends Amanda and Craig.

While we were camping I was getting calls and texts that my grandma was not well and getting worse. Then I got the call on Sunday morning, I needed to get to Atlanta. Like a cyclone Eddie and I packed our site. Our friends took care of the rest. I made it home to shower the boys and I and throw together another suitcase. By 2pm that afternoon the boys and I were on the road to Atlanta. We drove straight through and the boys were AMAZING!!!! Pulling up to the hospital at 11:15pm that night. I was able to say goodbye to my dear sweet abuela. The example of love, dedication, patience, education, decorum, and service she set will live on in the many lives she touched. 

After a week in Atlanta we returned home... it was now the end of June and our best-friends were leaving for 7 weeks and we had one day to see them!

There were some bad storms, bad damage in the are. Lost power for a day but were able to find refuge at Mom-mom and Pop-pop's.  And this is the Cliff's Notes to our month of June.