Isn't it lovely...

Yes, the beach in September is one of the most loveliest of the places.  The weather is comfortable (mid 70s), the beaches are quiet, no fighting for parking, warm water, the outdoor pool in our community is still on and heated to a lovely 87 degrees and the migratory birds are starting to come back into town.  What more could a family want.  Except to say that this weekend we also found the best Mexican food restaurant since moving to the East Coast.  A slam dunk of a weekend.  Filled with bright pink all around...

Yes, the pants really are that pink, but she loves them

Dad & Lily

Mom & Lily

Hmm... lone man enjoying his coffee on the beach

Lily flying her kite

Chasing seagulls or waves or... well who knows

International Dinner Night

Every year, Lily's schools celebrates the diversity of it's students and faculty by hosting an international dinner.  We start the evening with the children singing a variety of songs from different countries.  This year they learned songs from Sri Lanka, India, Ethiopia, Mexico and Thailand.  The children spend all September practicing their songs and Lily was very secretive all month about wanting it to be a "surprise".  The kids did a great job for being so young.  And after we got to have potluck of various international foods and desserts.  And everyone dressed up in their traditional dress from each of their countries.  It was a wonderful evening and the food was awesome!

A few pictures to share:

Lily & Sasha

All the kids singing their songs

Lily and some of her favorite guys (Lluc, Jones & Lennox)

Our good friends Chance and his mom Jewel

Lluc doing a fantastic dance

Lily and a new friend

Lluc & Lily in their normal hugging pose

Dress Up

Lily really enjoys playing dress up now.  So much that she convinced her friend Lluc to head to the hats, scarves and gloves drawers to enjoy some fun outfit making.

Labor Day 2013

Labor Day has become one of my favorite holidays.  It is a definite trip to the beach to enjoy all the festivities.  I was able to take the day off on Friday and Lily and I got some good quality Mommy & Lily time.  She was a perfect angel for me.  I often think she takes pity when it is just one of us taking care of her.  I can tell you that it was completely appreciated though and we had a wonderful day.  We were joined Friday evening by Lily's friend Lluc, his sister Mariana and parents Delores & Peter for another beach weekend.  On Saturday our beach community held their big annual carnival.  Full of sno cone machines, blow up slides and magicians.  The weather was absolutely perfect and we had a wonderful time.  Saturday night we also headed to meet some friends in Ocean City.  Lily was completely wiped out but she hung in there.  On Sunday we had a real adventure.  We hit the wave pool only to get caught in a torrential down pour.  No problem though... we had a big picnic in Lily's room for lunch.  Lluc and family headed home after that, but we got to enjoy another night full of playtime with our neighbors and Lily's friend Sam as well as some Sunday evening fireworks.  It made the crazy drive home on Monday all worth it.

Lily walking around the nature center

Enjoying a walk to the bay beach

Ignore the alcohol bottles, she really wasn't drinking them

Our friend Sam sharing Lily's smoothie

The carnival

Water balloon throwing on our patio at the beach house

There was a lot of popsicle sharing at the beach this weekend

And wagon rides (Lily loved pulling the boys... not sure how she managed to pull them across the grass however...)

More popsicles

My two favorite people

Enjoying some August sun

Between the pools at the beach house and the pools at our regular house, we go through some serious swimsuits and beach towels.  Just call this the summer of the "washer".  But boy, did we have fun with friends and family.  Lily got to spend lots of time with her friend Gianna (and little sister Mary Grace) at our pool in Silver Spring. The girls play so well together and even had time after the pool for a little dress up.

Lily's First Day of PreK4's

Chris sent this to me this morning and I could help but post it.  Unfortunately I had to go to work before she woke up.  We got in a little late from the beach last night so I thought she needed a little extra sleep, but apparently not:

Lily popped out of bed with a smile on her face, "where's mom?"  I told her you went to work and she was all business, let's get dressed, get my hair done, let me pick the hair stuff, brush my teeth.  "we can skip breakfast and go straight to school."  Yeah got her to eat cereal first...."what kind do you want? I ask..."cheerios with sugar like mom".  No I didn't give her sugar.  Then she proceeded to tell me how to pack her lunch and don't put so much in.  We were out the door by 7:35 with no show, she didn't want one.  No TV on the way to school so we turned on the radio and it was Call Me Maybe so she danced on the way to school.  We pull in and she is like wow look at all the cars, I can't wait to see my friends and apparently she couldn't because right after we went in the door she was gone, no goodbye nothing.

 

Amazing how fast they grow up...