wondrous weekend #3: bald head island

our annual venture to bald head island with chris's parents proved to be as fun as ever. it's just such a different type of beach experience than any other ... a ferry to get there (or two, if you're like us and plugged in the wrong address in your GPS), forests, wildlife, and those all-important golf carts to get ourselves around.  

just a tad windblown on the second ferry over

contrary to family humor, "old baldy" actually refers to the lighthouse on the island, and not our children's grandfathers

this is not liam posing with a funny expression -- it's truly his reaction to finding some special shell.  i use the word "special" lightly ... what he deems collection-worthy tends to make me scratch my head.  throughout our time down at the beach, he'd run up to me, breathless, proud to show off his findings.  and 99% of the time i'd wonder what in the ham sandwich he was finding so appealing.  yet, we now have a huge plastic bag full of such treasures back home, awaiting an attractive container to display them in all their glory

treats for the kids = luna pops.  treats for the adults = beers.  and everyone was happy

our rental cottage this year was so nestled in the woods that we kept referring to it as a treehouse

humans are outnumbered by animals on BHI, methinks.  seeing three deer right outside our front door on our last morning was really cool.  coming across a snake on a run, not so much

wondrous weekend #2: charlotte

out of all the weekend trips we have planned this summer, this shaped up to potentially be the least fun. i mean, we were headed to charlotte for an outdoor soccer tournament in JUNE. it was sure to be hot, we were traveling with mostly people we've only known for a short period of time whose only true common link is eight-year old athletics, and only one member in our immediate family played a role in the purpose of the trip.

and yet, we had an incredibly awesome time.  from petting exotic animals to the hotel pool and everything in between, it truly was a fantastic weekend.  this team of boys -- who live all over the local map (seriously, we're talking chapel hill, durham, garner, clayton, apex, cary, wake forest, raleigh ...) and their parents and siblings have become like a second family to us over the past year.  we are truly blessed!

and the cherry on top of an already delicious sundae?  liam and his teammates being crowned the tournament champions!  (proud momma here)  woot woot!

in interest of fairness, i thought i'd start with a picture of the Trooper of the Weekend, susanna.  she shares this award with one of her besties eliza, younger sister of one of liam's teammates.  throughout the games, we'd periodically tear our eyes away from the field and do a quick search for the girls, who could always be found running in the grass nearby and flailing their arms as they pretended to be fairies of some sort

much to our dismay, liam wound up playing goalie for two halves.  chris and i hate it when he offers to do this, knowing how terribly hard he is on himself.  luckily he only allowed one goal to be scored under his watch, which happened to be a high shot and one he never could have stopped -- and yet, he still beat himself up over it.  we much prefer him playing any other spot on the field

following saturday's games, we took a drive to the lazy 5 ranch in mooresville on the recommendation of friends.  we spent an hour or so driving through this enormous park where all sorts of animals walked right up to us in search of a friendly snack

after hanging out in the way back for much of the drive, susanna finally warmed up to a llama

who would've thunk that a soccer tournament weekend would give us our first opportunity to feed giraffes?  but by far the biggest hit were the ostriches ... chris says he has never laughed so hard as when the first one followed me halfway into the car ... i had no idea what to do and i was terrified he was going to peck my eyes out, and was almost on top of chris in the driver's seat

know who else were champions?  we just so happened to win the trivia contest at dinner saturday night.  i think i contributed one right answer (which was related to wine, natch)

the hammers, from left: coach jordan, jonah, tony, liam, sam, max, carter, bryson, braeden

and just two seconds later.  boys will be boys

following the medal "ceremony", we drove to davidson for the kids' first visit.  they were disappointed to find all the buildings locked, but we enjoyed walking around and seeing all of his old haunts, including his fraternity house ...

... and baseball stadium ...

... and random sculptures

no davidson visit is complete without a milkshake from the soda shop.  they kept the kids quiet for a good ten minutes of our drive home

the sweet taste of victory!

hands down

among the long list of perks of chris's new job (interested in why SAS is the #2 employer in the country? click here) are deep discounts on the summerfest series.  the NC symphony plays most saturday evenings in the summer at an outdoor amphitheater and guests can bring their own picnics to enjoy while they listen to the music.  each week has its own theme, so we invited another family to join us for the "magical mystery tour" that was all about the beatles.

to get ready for the event, chris queued up all sorts of beatles tunes that afternoon and had them playing through our stereo system.  we were eating lunch on our screened porch when my absolute favorite popped up on the rotation.  "oh kids," i said, getting ready to belt it out (much to their dismay), "this is my favorite beatles song ever, hands down."

that evening, after the sun set and we had all had our fill of delicious food and more than a few beverages, the first few notes of that same tune reached my ears.  susanna was sitting in my lap and after a while, turned towards me.  "i wonder why the beatles didn't just name this song 'let it be'," she said.  "that would make a lot more sense."

"they did, sweetheart.  the title is just like the chorus -- let it be."

she looked at me, confused.  "i thought you said it was called 'hands down'."

hands were UP for the final number -- "twist & shout", of course

wondrous weekend #1: the NC mountains

i think i might have over-scheduled our summer a bit.

we have nine weekends between the last day of school in june and liam's first day of school in august.  it's so short for two reasons: one, our public school system, the genius folk that they are, decided it would be grand idea to have our final day of the 2012-2013 year fall on a monday.  (seriously?!)  and two, liam's new charter school starts back up a few weeks earlier than public schools -- incidentally, on his birthday of august 14.  put all of that together, and we wind up with what will most likely be the briefest summer break our family will ever have.

out of those nine weekends, we are out of town for seven of them.  and for one of the two that remain, liam will be an hour away at a soccer tournament all day saturday.  so really, we've got ONE weekend where we can sleep in, lounge around the house, and not open up our suitcases once.  i'm already longing for july 26 and it's not even technically summer yet.

BUT the good news is, for those seven weekends we're gone, we sure have some super-fun things planned.  we've just back from spending four days with good friends in the mountains.  on friday we head to charlotte for a soccer tournament (well, i guess "super-fun" might not necessarily apply to all family members) but we will also see friends and family in the queen city and perhaps even stop by the beautiful davidson campus for chris to reminisce.  we then head to bald head island with chris's parents, topsail with friends, DC for a dodgers game, and wrap up back at topsail with my extended family.

in an attempt to actually move pictures off of my iPhone and to a place where we can actually look at them, i'm hereby introducing a weekly post that i'll title Wondrous Weekend.  here's our first installment.

brady (6), web (10), liam (8), marshall (6), and susanna (7).  i'm proud to say our lone little girl was a trooper -- she hung out with the boys all weekend with nary a lalaloopsy doll or plastic tiara in sight

the new hot tub proved to be the biggest hit

we did a fairly strenuous hike on friday morning that was four miles up a pretty steep trail.  susanna tuckered out with about a quarter mile left (so she and i hung out on a rock and played I Spy) but the boys made it all the way.  just in case you were wondering, I Spy doesn't last too long on a hiking trail.  "i spy something green!" pretty much sums up everything in sight

 marshall and susanna camped out on night #2 on the front porch.  with temperatures dipping into the low 50s we all expected them to ditch the idea, but they lasted until 5:30 a.m.  their body heat must have kept them warm -- a sweet thought when they're 6 and 7.  and for that reason, it won't even be an option in few years

we participated in a fun painting class in west jefferson -- here's our artist-in-residence, hard at work

she actually solicited my help with the easy parts.  here's our finished product

the longest slide known to man, at a park in west jefferson

oh my ... what to say about this one ... most of the group went tubing on saturday afternoon.  we've gone many times before, but this time turned out to be much different because we really had no way of knowing just how deep and swift the water turned out to be.  i knew that my back couldn't handle sitting in that position for that long, so lainey and i helped them start off, and then drove to the ending point to meet them when they were done.  in the meantime, liam, who was alone in his raft, got totally stuck on the edge of the river and the rest of the adults were moving so fast in their own rafts that they couldn't get over to help him.  after a long while, he finally was able to free himself and eventually caught up to chris and susanna.  a truly frightening experience for all involved (liam was shaking for an hour afterwards) ... but our boy is a survivor and now has a story to tell for sure

how did we spend father's day?  by shopping at the outlets on the way home, of course!  what more could a dad want -- besides, perhaps, a matching hat from j. crew?

it's 2:00 pm and this kid's exhausted, which sums up the weekend perfectly

wordless wednesday: first communion

after a year of sunday school classes leading up to the big event, susanna celebrated her first communion this month.  we just so happened to take a few pictures of her special morning.

susanna and her godmother lainey, who gave her a strand of pearls (real pearls!, susanna likes to remind me) that her godmother had given to her for her first communion a few decades ago

the whole group, including susanna's great-grandmother margie, who celebrated her 94th birthday the day after susanna's 7th birthday

 two items worth pointing out:  one, we finally got liam to smile in this one.  he seems to think his smile looks "awkward" -- whatever that means.  and two, please notice (and marvel at) the beautiful floral arrangement in susanna's hair, which cost more than some of the clothes we were wearing

different strokes

"i saw 'swim team sign-ups' on the calendar for saturday," chris said to me over the phone a few weeks back.  "what does that mean?"

"well, it means that i'm taking the kids to the club for swim team sign-ups," i replied.  (this man went to college.  and he speaks english.  i wasn't quite sure what the confusion was about.)

silence.  and then, "so we're doing swim team this year?"

"i thought we'd try it.  i grew up doing swim team, and i know you did too."

"sara, did you like swim team?"

"oh hell no.  i hated it."

"so did i," he replied.  "which brings me back to my original question.  what does 'swim team sign-ups' mean, exactly?"

i sighed.  he had a point.  i really had no business diving into (pun intended) such a big family commitment if i weren't fully convinced myself.  but i just felt like we needed to give it a shot.  it's like a rite of passage or something -- doesn't every child in america participate on a swim team at some point?  doesn't every child need the experience of screaming at the top of their lungs for teammates in the water who can barely hear them, and crowding under the shelter when the inevitable thunder delay comes, and licking their bright blue fingers that are stained with jello powder?  and doesn't every parent want a picture of their soaking wet child proudly holding up a ribbon?  (note: my childhood pictures only involve orange participant ribbons.  i don't think i even knew there were other colors until i was a teenager.  but man, was i proud of those suckers.)

so, sign up we did, knowing that if it turned out to be a debacle, we'd have the option of backing out.  and after a few hiccups, the kids are doing great.  susanna is happily participating in the "little dippers" group, which is comprised mostly of 4-year olds, but she's becoming more and more comfortable in the water and will likely move up to the 7-8 age group in a few weeks.  (this is the girl who was swimming circles all over the pool at the end of the summer last year -- she even chose the name "diving dolphin" for Y princesses because of it -- but who swore she was "drownding" at the swim placement test.)

liam has only made one swim team practice so far because we're in this crazy overlapping of sports seasons where every single one of his teams is still meeting.  (just out of curiosity, i counted it up last week, and he had SIXTEEN practices or games.  sixteen!  in seven days!   insanity!)  add that to the fact that he hasn't had a swim lesson in probably three years, and i knew that the mock meet last night would prove to be quite interesting.  the boy can make it from one end of the pool to the other.  how he gets there is the entertaining part.  freestyle, he can handle.  the others ... well, i'll let my text to chris prepare you for the video below.

and here's his first trip down the lane in the mock meet.  when the camera starts going a little crazy, it's me flailing my arms in some semblance of breaststroke, trying to show him what to do.  (i told you, i'm an orange-participant-ribbon-only girl.  probably hurt more than helped him, but he sort of figured it out.)

but the best part?  he jumped back in a few minutes later to do the butterfly for real ... and won.  he stood there, dripping wet, beaming.  "this is so much fun!" he exclaimed.

looks like we'll be spending the majority of our summer at the pool.

awesome

susanna, my sweet sweet angel girl,

how do i describe you, as you turn this magical and wonderful age of seven?  i've asked myself this question ever since your big day a few weeks ago.  i find myself watching you more intently than i normally do, in quiet observation as i try to find just the right words to use ... and yet, i still feel like my words are inadequate.  but the process has been so worthwhile, because in the hustle and bustle of our crazy everyday lives, i often forget to slow down and witness the amazing person you have become. this endeavor of mine has proven to me, yet again, how incredibly blessed we are to call you ours.

it was a few days after your party that i was struck with the perfect story to share.  you had a list a mile long of presents you had received for your birthday, from your grandparents, godparents, great-grandmother, brother, parents, and, of course, your gazillion friends.  (honestly - is there anyone in the world who has more friends than you?)  i handed you some stationery and asked you to choose someone from that list and write them a thank you note.  i expected stalling, or complaining, or frustration, since those are all perfectly normal reactions of a seven-year old.

instead, you sat down at the breakfast table, pencil gripped in your hand, brow furrowed in concentration.  and after a little while, you came up to me and handed me the note.  "is this good?" you asked.

it was one of the most wonderful thank you notes i had ever seen.  the message you had written was thoughtful, it was heartfelt -- it was real.  you had drawn a picture of the gift and decorated the margins with hearts and had filled the small empty space at the bottom with dozens of "XOXO"s.  and while there might have been a small spelling error here or there, it didn't matter.  i could picture the smile that would spread across the recipient's face as she opened up her envelope and read your words.

and that, i think, sort of sums you up:  you're thoughtful, you're heartfelt -- you're real.  i'm not sure this is the best way to put it, but i call you "quietly amazing".  meaning, you're not a show-off of all your talents and brilliance and gifts.  you don't scream for attention or crave the limelight.  but once people are around you, they get to know you, and they start to witness just who susanna mann is.  and what they witness is never short of miraculous.

look out, world!  here comes susanna

as i was pondering what exactly i was going to write, i sought help from your brother.  i explained, "soon i'll be writing my annual birthday post for susanna.  what kinds of words would you use to describe your sister?"

our resident master puzzle solver

"hmm," he mused from the back seat, deep in thought.  "she's funny.  and really good at art and dance and music.  and a little sassy ... and smart, of course ..." he faded off as he mused over other options.  "i don't really know how to say it, actually.  she's just ... well ... susanna is awesome."

happy seventh birthday to our thoughtful, funny, talented, sassy, smart, and just plain awesome baby girl.  we love you so!

infinity squared,

mommy

a birthday pedicure, as is our tradition

and a good time was had by all, part two

i've finally gathered the final photos of our amazing bahamian vacation, if for no other reason than to prove that the adults were actually on the trip.

one afternoon chris and i got off the boat and actually left liam and susanna in the kids' club.  come to find out, we could have totally brought them to the bar.  they seem to have relaxed rules in the bahamas

 

my two athletics-loving boys participated in a sports trivia contest, and won!  the plastic gold trophy is sitting on a shelf in liam's room.  and yet another plastic gold trophy takes up residence next to susanna's bed.  not to boast, but i won that one for winning a trivia contest on celebrities.  who said reading people magazine is a waste of time?!

frozen drinks poolside with my BFF of 27 years ... doesn't get much better

the whole clan, in what we now refer to as "the titanic picture" ... probably not the smartest thing to call it while we were still on the boat, come to think of it

truly, the best trip ever

cute girl

i had the pleasure of joining liam's second grade class today for their mother's day celebration.  all twenty-two moms were present, sitting at desks around the edge of the room, while one by one, each of our offspring stepped forward to the front of the class.  on an easel to their left, they placed a portrait they had painted of their mom, and then each of them read a short essay they had written. 

when the first student began, i actually started to tear up a little -- it was so heartfelt, so genuine.  but then the second one read hers, and it sounded quite similar.  and then the third continued the theme.  by the time the fourth one launched into his spiel, i had the formula down pat: an introduction; a paragraph describing their mom; a paragraph about their mom's skills or talents; a paragraph about what they like to do with their mom; and a conclusion.  (the general format of the five paragraph essay has obviously not changed much in the past few decades.)

while there was much variety among us twenty-two moms in terms of talents and skills and enjoyed activities, we were all remarkably similar in one way: apparently, we are all beautiful.  "my mom is beautiful because she has curly and shiny hair!" we heard.  and then, "my mom is beautiful because she has rosy lips!" and, "my mom is beautiful because she has soft skin!" 

there was only one child in the bunch who broke from the norm.  liam.

"i love my mom, and this tells all about her," he began.  (introduction, check.)  "my mom, sara, is ..." i waited for it.  "... a very cute girl."

the entire perimeter of the room chuckled, catching liam by surprise.  his eyes darted toward me for reassurance -- had he said something funny?   i gave him a thumbs up, and he smiled back at me before returning to his reading.

so "beautiful" was not his word of choice ... but that's quite all right.  i don't mind a bit.

because i'm a Very Cute Girl.

and a good time was had by all, part 1

ridiculous.  it really is.  it's been over a month since we departed for our first family vacation ever, and i have yet to really do it justice here on the blog.  i've been meaning to sit down here at the computer and go through all the photos but Lord have mercy, we took so many photos on so many different devices that i swear it has just taken me two hours to compile all of them together.

i have so many to share that i've decided to split them up into a kids' post and an adults' post.  (and since we hardly take any pictures of just ourselves, the adults' post will also have kids in it.) 

so without futher ado ... i give you the mann-bass 2013 family cruise, kid style.


 web (9), susanna (6), liam (8), marshall (6) -- all in matching seersucker, in case you happened to miss it -- in front of a very cheesy backdrop

his dream came true!  table tennis galore!  he was actually so into it that random people would stop and watch him play.  seems all that wii practice has paid off

 collecting seashells and teeny crabs in the most beautiful blue water we've ever seen

her findings

our lovely room -- and lest you think that we splurged and actually paid for a room with a window, realize that there was nothing behind that curtain but wall.  the kids loved them some bunk beds.  i was, unfortunately, singing a different tune the fifth time i bonked my head on them

liam must have jetted down this slide a hundred times.  luckily it did not dump him out into the ocean, as susanna gratefully realized

dancing up a storm at dinner one night.  i'm assuming they don't actually know what flo rida is singing about in this song ...

stay tuned for installment number two, because chris and i actually were on this trip.  as we say each time we pull into the driveway from whatever excursion we've just finished ... "and a good time was had by all." 

especially the kids.