what were we thinking?!

it was the great trifecta.  when we planned liam's 10th birthday party, three glorious aspects came together:

1)  the only time we could do it was the night we got home from being at the beach for a week. 
2)  he wanted to invite four of his soccer friends -- crazy, fun, high-energy 9-year old boys.
3)  he wanted to have a sleepover.

i'll repeat that again.  he wanted to have a sleepover with four crazy, fun, high-energy 9-year old boys.

in all seriousness, they had a great time.  they were well-behaved for the most part, and didn't damage the house too much.  (there was a moment when i stomped up the stairs at full volume at close to midnight, threatening to call their parents if i had to come up there again ... but we won't dwell on such matters.)

actions speak louder than words.  except, maybe for these words ...  i'll let the video below do the talking.

 we decided to have cake and ice cream at the house ... turned out to be a very wise move

this is honestly the only picture i could get of the group at the bowling alley.  but after several attempts, i gave up, since it turned out to be quite indicative of how the night went in general.  (from the left, it's max, sam, kaidan, liam, and braeden)

 much more subdued the next morning over a breakfast of chocolate chip pancakes, for some reason

we really did enjoy it, and, most importantly, liam loved every minute.  and hey, 10 is a big one; it's worth a bit more hoopla.

(which also means, my son, don't expect a sleepover like this any time soon.  xoxo)

bald head 2014

we enjoyed another vacation at bald head island with chris's parents last week, filled with several of the usual suspects (ping-pong and pool and beach, natch) and a few new additions to the entertainment mix.  the biggest improvement was the commute; susanna reminded us that our faulty GPS led us to the wrong port last year which resulted in us having to take two ferries.  so we relied on google maps this time around, and it was smooth sailing (pun intended).  as for the rest of the week, i'll just let the pictures (and lengthy captions) speak for themselves ...

"you know what i remember about last year's house?" susanna asked us as we boarded the boat to take us onto the island.  "i left a library book there and it always comes up on our overdue list when we go to check out more books."  five minutes after arriving , she comes running out of her room, cackling with laughter -- and holding the dadgum book

 liam brought his clubs and somehow coerced chris and chris's dad into taking him out to the driving range on two separate days.  he apparently sank a 40-foot putt on the practice green and drew several comments of admiration

susanna tried her hand at geocaching for the first time, and even got a super cool rainbow loom bracelet out of it.  i see other geocaching escapades in our future [full disclosure: chris hadn't brought anything with him to replace the bracelet.  so they wound up leaving a sports clips frequent customer card.  and it wasn't even close to getting a free haircut.]

pitting a nine-year old boy against a senior citizen in a game of twister wasn't exactly the most fair match-up ... but a fun way to pass the time on an overcast evening

one of the perennial highlights of BHI: golf carts as the primary mode of transportation

and yet another perennial highlight: ice cream, of course