Summer in New England

For those of you who have lived in New England you know that summer does not last very long here but when it is here it is beautiful. A little while back we had highs in the 40s and the next day it was 80 degrees and sunny. Luckily it has stayed that way and we have been able to get out and enjoy it.

We have spent a lot of time on our bikes and exploring the places we have lived lately. We started with a trip to Newport. It was a great day trip. We brought the bikes and loaded the boys up for what we didn't know would be about 18 miles of riding. We really wanted them to experience everything though. We viewed the mansions, went to the cliff walk, flew kites at Brenton Point, toured downtown, and then surfed some waves at the beach. This is where the surfing video comes from. Here are a few more pictures. It was a great day.

On another occasion we decided we wanted to walk out to the outer lighthouse here in Old Saybrook. The lighthouse is famous and featured on the license plates of CT vehicles. After a 2.5 mile ride and a 0.5 mile walk we made it to the light. It was worth it.

One More Fishing Visdeo

Miller Boys Fishing

Jack and Everett tried their hand at fishing a few days ago. We grabbed some worms and bobbers and headed down to the lake. I was somewhat worried about whether or not we would catch anything but knew I had seen fish swimming in the lake.

Cast #1: After about 10 minutes of getting set up and getting Everett's rod rigged up he walked up and cast it right into a tree. Hook, line, and sinker...all gone. Oh well, on to the next cast:

Cast #2: After another 10 minutes of re-rigging Everett's pole the boys were starting to get restless. After all, we had been at the lake for 20 whole minutes, one cast into a tree and no fish yet. The second cast was a beauty. Everett put it right out there. I told him to wait and turned around to grab my pole. Next thing I knew he was screaming and reeling and landed his first fish.

It never slowed down. Cast after cast brought in a fish and I never did get my line wet. We caught 15 fish that morning with Jack landing the largest one. Here are a few pictures and a video.

Easy Riders

While down in Annapolis for Danielle's wedding my parents neighbor was nice enough to let us borrow an electric quad that was perfect for the boys. Here they are going for a cruise.

Danielle's Wedding

A few weekends ago the family took a trip down to Annapolis for my sister's wedding. On May 21st, 2011 she wed Ed Quach in a beautiful ceremony in a historic church in Annapolis. Speaking of beautiful, check out the bride.

The wedding went off without a hitch and everyone enjoyed themselves witnessing such a great event.

Mr. and Mrs. Quach coming out of the church and heading to the reception.

The reception was a great time with plenty of celebrating and dancing. Ev took his turn dancing with the bride. He even let the father of the bride have a chance.

Of course, the wedding was attended by a lot of family. Here is a picture of everyone that was able to make it.

Congratulations Danielle and welcome to the family Ed.

It's Potty time, and other unrelated event

It has been busy here (as usual). I would update the blog with the pictures from out trip to SC, but instead I will take this opportunity to call out my sister for not sending them yet.... So instead I will update what we have been doing. When we got home, Jack got rid of his pacifier and then went right into potty training. It took a few accidents, but dare I say he is potty trained!! He is wearing big boy underwear all the time (when awake) and doing great. Everett was really helpful in teaching him the ropes, and mommy got really good at cleaning the bathroom every few hours.

It has been getting pretty nice out, so we took our new kites (presents for the boys birthdays from Brian and Ali, Ev's Godparents) out for a try. Both boys loved it! Turns out they can do it all by themselves. Thanks Brian and Ali!

We had a nice Easter at Auntie Claudia and Uncle Danny's house. I will have to add some pics later. The boys dressed up in suits and were adorable. The Easter Bunny dropped off some baskets at our house, Aunt Claudia's and left some eggs there as well. It was a really nice day with family.

And the other day it was beautiful, so we hit the town beach. We stayed the whole morning and the boys even braved the chilly water and wadded in. We had to go home when the lips turned blue, but it looks like nice days are on their way!

And yesterday we headed out to a family fun day with Everett's friend Kendrick. They had a blast on the moon bounce, obstacle course, and pony rides!
Jack liked the ponys the most and kept yelling "Mamma, Daddy, look at me, I riding!!".

We will post some more soon.

Easy Rider

How do you get a fine specimen like this you ask? Well it's simple!

First you take two fine specimen like these...

You eat healthy and make sure to work out on a regular basis...

And get that cardio in, and you are all set!

Everett loves his new bike. We tore up the town yesterday riding all the way from home to downtown to grab some lunch and head home. After naps we were at it again. Ev probably rode about 3 miles total yesterday. And today, we rode our bikes home from school.

Here are some random pictures I found on my phone of the things we have done in the last few weeks.

Cockpit day at the Air museum. Here are all the boys in front of an old Coast Guard Helicopter. Can you believe our friends fly these things? Hysterical and scary.

And here is Everett with a wolf at our local zoo.

Its still cold up here, so we had to take a break from the zoo and warm up in the carousel.

The dogs are still kicking around too. Delilah has been dying to get some runs in. Look how stressed she is.

March Madness

It's that time again - March Madness!! March marks the coming of too too many birthdays.

Napolean - March 9th

Clint - March 10th

Clare - March 14th

Tad - March 15th

Everett - March 19th

Jack - March 27th

Pappi - March 30 and 31st (long story)

And by the end of the month, we are all tired and broke!

We started the month off with a visit from Grandma and Grandpa Miller to celebrate the boys' birthdays.

After that we jetted off to South Carolina to visit with the Venns in a birthday extravaganza. Everett had a blast playing with Girl toys and hanging out with his cousins. Here is a pic of Pappa moose playing the guitar for the kids.

Here are three of the cousins zoning out in front of some toonies. Caroline is off running around or jumping on something.

Here is grammi getting in some good cuddles. Everett is off running around or jumping on something.

The trip was fantastic and we miss the girls terribly. The kids had a great time but were exhausted and took a few days to recover from the craziness. I'll post more pictures as soon as my sister sends me a copy of them....Sarah....hint

After our trip to SC, we had a great birthday party for all the March birthdays at Gammi and Pappis house. Auntie Claudia and Uncle Danny made an awesome snake cake for the boys. The boys got a sweet barbecue, some big boy bikes (Everett learned to ride on Clare's pink princess bike), and some other great stuff.

The next day was Jack's actual birthday. We started the day with a game of basketball, from Aunt Sarah and Uncle Tad.

And then went off to the circus. Great Grandma and Grandpa Miller sent the boys some birthday money and they chose to use it to enjoy some rides,

see a bunch of animals, and....

ride a ginormous elephant!

We still owe them a phone call to thank them for the thoughtful gift. After that we went to have some ice cream at the rainforest cafe (which incidentally Jack actually hates - go figure).

I think the busy month tired the boys out just a little bit.

We even got to have some fun face timing Auntie Katie after dinner!

Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes, thoughts and gifts. The boys had a wonderful month of extravaganza!

St. Thomas 2011

This year marked our second annual trip to St. Thomas where we stay at a beautiful house up in the mountains. As you can see, we certainly enjoyed the view.

Of course, we couldn't just sit in the pool the whole time. We had to hit the beach. We started with the beach below the house, Lindquist, one of the least known and quietest beaches on St. Thomas. Don't let that fool you though, it is beautiful.

Jack had a good time last year but this year he really lived up to his blond curls and surfer attitude. If you tried to drag this kid off the beach you would literally have two tracks running from the beach to the jeep caused by his little feet.Although we spent most of our time at Lindquist we did have to check out some of the island's other beaches. Megan's Bay is consistently rated as on of the most beautiful beaches in the world so we took a trip there. Once again the kids loved it and spend a lot of time running back and forth along the sand holding hands. There they go...

And here they come...After a while the adults got tired of chasing them (even though there were six of us working in shifts) and wanted to sit down and enjoy a nice Bushwacker (the signature drink of Megan's Bay). We were able to do this thanks to a great invention by Uncle Danny...We call it "The Kid Catcher." Essentially you build the largest hole in the sand you can and make steps down into it and kids walking (or running since they never walk) fall right into the trap and start playing quietly together. It is amazing. Here are various shots of "The Kid Catcher."

Sometimes you can get them to help build there own trap:Apparently, it is a Grandpa catcher too:

After all that time on the beach we had to take a day to relax and explore the island. We jumped in the jeeps and started quite a journey to the top of the highest mountain on St. Thomas. Here are a couple of photos from the trip up.

On another day we took a ferry to one of the BVIs, Jost Van Dyke. We went to White Bay which is where the famous Soggy Dollar Bar is located. There we hung out on the beach and drank painkillers.We also took a walk down the beach. We had heard that Alton Brown from the food channel had profiled this small beach restaurant called One Love that had some great food. We all got a fish sandwich and it did not dissapoint. After all the eating and drinking and playing on the beach the boys were pretty tired so they passed out together in a hammock.

Amy was tired too, but she didn't make it to the hammock.

Speaking of restaurants, we ate at a few other places that were pretty good. Iggy's had the best wings on the island, and buckets of RUM.We also went to Jack's because of the name.
Another night we went to Duffy's love shack. As you can see the boys danced the night away.

Late nights of dancing lead to long mornings of being tired. Here they are passed out in the Jeep.The last day the Grandparents were nice enough to take the kids so that the adults could go on a charter boat excursion. The boat took us to the "Baths" of Virgin Gorda. The Baths (Batholiths) are a huge granite boulder field. There are very few of them in the world and this is the only one on the water. I only put one picture because the pictures really do not do it justice. It is one of those things you just have to see.After the Baths we went snorkeling and then had lunch at the famous Pussers Landing on Marina Cay. Marina Cay is a small 6 acre island off the coast of Tortola. One of the distinguishing landmarks is this photo booth out on the dock. This picture comes from a live webcam online that updates every 15 seconds. You can check it out at www.pussers.com

Of course once back on the boat we did a little drinking and partying. It was a great day.

The whole trip was great and we especially like to thank Pappa and Grammi and Uncle Danny and Aunt Claudia for being so great with the kids. The kids are resting up for next year...