He really loves this thing.

Story Time with Big Sister

DeCordova Museum

One beautiful day in July, we went with Grandma and the Lubrettsky's to the DeCordova Museum. This museum has a lot of large outside art/sculptures, and was set among some fantastic landscaping. We went on a small walk to see some of these although it seems like there were many more acres we didn't have time to explore. Here are a few examples:

The kids also had fun looking for ants and letting them crawl all over them (ew!). Luckily they didn't find too many. I'm pretty sure Cecilia would have passed on this particular activity if it weren't for her cousins. :)

The whole set of pictures can be found here.

Tummy Time!

The Greenway

Cecilia had a great time with Abby, Olivia, Aaron and Jacob on the Greenway one day this summer. They all enjoyed running in the sprinklers:

 

 

There were also these cool blue blocks set out for kids to play with:

Harbor Islands Trip

We had our annual trip to the Harbor Islands in July with the Lubrettsky's, and also with Melanie, Nils, and Astrid. We did the same thing we did last year - we went to Georges Island to walk around the fort, then we took the ferry to Spectacle Island to go to the beach for a short time.

The kids really enjoyed the ferry rides:

A little golf cart was a big hit in the fort:

Some pics from the beach at Spectacle Island. This year, Cecilia did not sleep through the beach portion of the trip. (She also did not fall asleep in her stroller - we didn't bring it - and even better, she didn't pee while asleep in her stroller.)

Just a nice pic:

NYC with the Johnsons

In July, we took the Johnsons with us to New York City. One thing we did was take a kid-friendly cruise around the Statue of Liberty! They had a lot of kid activities on board, such as animal balloons, magicians and a pirate that walked around, etc.

I think Jasper was not interested in taking a picture that day, and I don't know why Bronwyn and Cecilia both have such funny expressions on their faces... But everyone had a great time.

To this day, Cecilia can still recognize the Statue of Liberty, which is pretty cool.

Another Smile

They come quite often these days, but here is another one from last week for the grandparents:

Bouncy Bed Dance

July 4th

We joined the Lubrettsky's for a July 4th parade in Sudbury this year. They had a very sweet (and not too crowded) old-fashioned parade with old cars, high school marching bands, local businesses, etc. And many of the paraders threw out candy for the onlookers, which of course was a favorite with Aaron, Jacob and Cecilia.



Cecilia got a little US flag from Jen, and was told that by waving the flag at the paraders, they threw candy for you, so she was a maniac with the flag waving for almost the entire parade.

Later that afternoon, we went to the Chris and Lisa Brookin's house for a fantastic barbecue. It turned out to be a huge party for the kids. I brought balloon animals and face paint (for Jen to paint faces), and another parent brought a portable bouncy house, which was a huge hit with all the kids.

Here are a couple representative faces. Aaron wanted to be a lion, just like Cecilia, so that he could be her brother (or dad or something). Very cute.

And finally, here are some shenanigans with the bouncy house, which was overrun with too many kids:

Stage Fort Park

One Sunday in July, we planned to go to Wingaersheek Beach but didn't get moving quite early enough, and so couldn't get a parking spot there. Instead, we went to Stage Fort State Park in Gloucester, which is only 10 minutes away. It's a really nice park with a big playground, baseball diamond, and several beaches with shallow calm water. One beach is nice and sandy and can get a little crowded on nice days. The other beaches are pretty rocky, but tend to be pretty empty, so that's where we usually go. Cecilia doesn't seem to mind and has a ton of fun no matter what.

As expected, this day was spent playing with the sand and the water. And of course, a little rock-climbing.

Camping in Wompatuck State Park

In June, we went camping in Wompatuck State Park with the Lubrettsky's.

We brought this huge "10-man" tent, which is really not as big as it sounds. We also brought a big queen-size blow-up mattress that we all slept on, so "camping" is sort of a loose term. Cecilia, Aaron and Jacob had a ton of fun jumping on our mattress and hiding in our tent, which had 2 rooms!




The full set of pictures can be found here.