We had a great time celebrating my mom's birthday while at the beach! We took her out to breakfast that morning, and then went to pick up my dad at the small airport in Beaufort and she had no idea! She was so surprised! We gave her some small gifts and then Grandma cooked an awesome dinner for her. Of course we all enjoyed it, though! We had a DQ cake for singing happy birthday and made a great party out of it :)

On Wednesday of our beach trip last week, we drove a few miles up the island to the aquarium. I've never seen Kate so excited about something...she was squealing and talking nonstop the whole time. Her sister was also pretty into all of the exhibits. It definitely takes two people to bring them to a place like this...I was thankful to have Gramme there to push the stroller and lift one of them up to see. It was a nice morning out of the sun.



I will try to post the rest of the beach pictures tomorrow!

The blog is a little quiet because we've come to the beach again for a small trip! We have been here since Monday, and will leave tomorrow. We all miss Daddy a lot, so we are looking forward to being home again, but we have certainly enjoyed our vacation with Gramme and Mama Dot. I will upload more pictures when I get home, but here is a preview of our trip to the aquarium yesterday:

A few Saturdays ago we spent the day at the lake with friends. Aaron is planning to participate in the Tough Mudder in October, so every Saturday for the past several months, they have been training. This particular Saturday they drove to the lake to do their training, and the wives and some other families drove up later in the morning to meet them. We ordered subs for lunch and spent half of the day there. It was beautiful weather and fun company. Thanks to everyone for making the drive up there!

That same day, after we left the lake, we stopped in Vinton at a park to celebrate a birthday! A friend of ours, Tyler, was turning 30, and his wife Jenny put on a big party for him. I used to teach with Jenny, and she definitely threw the party teacher-style: organized, well-thought-out, creative, and fun! It was a "Wanted" cowboy theme...he was completely surprised by a kidnapping and everything. Unfortunately, we missed the surprise (we, ahem, ran out of gas when leaving the lake and had a long delay...thankfully someone stopped to help us and gave Aaron a ride to the gas station; otherwise we would have been out there the rest of the evening. It was completely my fault and it will certainly never happen again), but we heard the story of it all when we got there.

Jenny gave us all cowboy tattoos. V was entranced with this, too.

The happy couple :)

Last Thursday (yes, at the last minute), I had a chance to take Vivian by herself to pick out a birthday present for her sister. It was exciting for her to have such a big job! I helped a little bit, but Vivian chose a baby doll and some new cars. Kate is in love with taking care of her new baby doll.
We didn't have a chance for V to give her the present until Saturday morning...Friday was just too busy!