Lately

While you wait for giant posts and baby pictures, I thought I'd share what we've been up to lately.

The Captain has decided his job is to combine strange dress-ups together to make me laugh.

Cat Super Hero

Monster Doctor Explorer with Sock Hands!

Robot.  Bonus points for anyone who identifies what I was watching.

Of course, Joy has to join in with her favorite costume, the dinosaur. 

I hope you guessed before this picture, cause that's just a give away.

Here is when she discovered she had a tail.

 And today we went to the library for the family movie and the circus clowns.  Both kids loved it.

I'm not sure who Joy is looking at, but she missed the "mommy is taking the picture" memo.

 Now all the kids want to do is play circus.  So hopefully that will keep them busy for a few days.

Easter

Yes, I know, Easter was so one month ago, but I am catching up, people.  And we're almost done.  Just in time for me to have a baby and get really behind again. Anyway, Easter.  Yes.  We celebrated that.  We went to a giant Easter egg hunt at a baptist church near us.

 As you can see, the fields were full of eggs.  Johnny said they looked like they had been sprinkled.  

They had four fields divided by age.  Joy was at the top of her age group, which was babies to 3.  

She took her time and picked out the eggs she wanted.

Mostly it was the ones with the most designs.  

I'm pretty sure The Captain's field went the quickest.  They were done about 30 seconds into the hunt.  Joy's group lasted 5 minutes or so.  This place was great.  They have playgrounds and a splash area.  For this event they had bounce houses set up.  We stayed and played.  I got my second sunburn of the year.  We ran into several of our friends.  It was a great day.  

For actual Easter, we died some Easter eggs after breakfast, since we have so much time before church starts at 1.  Joy actually let me do her hair, which is always a good time.

Joy has had a bloody nose since our North Carolina trip.  It's just because of actual sores on her nose that scab up, which blocks her nose, so we have to peal them off, which makes them bleed . . . it's a vicious cycle.  Anyway that is not why she is so sad.

She's sad because she cracked four of the eggs after playing with them when I told her not to.  

We had egg salad for lunch.  

Joy wasn't the only good looking one.  The Captain looked spiffy as well.

After church, we had our own Easter egg hunt in the back yard.  

Making sure there are no eggs left.

As promised, a whole bunch of beach pictures. 

By the end of the week, we had great weather.  I was a little worn out, though, so the grandparents took the kiddos to the beach one afternoon without me while I took a nap or something equally nice.  The next day, Johnny was back, the weather was nice, so we spent a few hours on the beach.  The kids were ecstatic that the sand castle they had made the day before was still standing.  I was pretty impressed, too.  Thanks everyone else with our same private access to the beach!

 Everyone run to the ocean!

 Joy was very distressed that Daddy was swimming in the ocean.

 See, swimming in the ocean.  The ocean, people!

So, knowing no fear, Joy rushed in to save him.  Luckily, Johnny was mostly back in at that point.

 My in-laws taking their daily walk together.

This is what 32 weeks pregnant looks like.  That, or there's some weird bend in my straw-like shadow that I should get looked at . . . 

 Building a sand castle with Daddy. 

 Destroying the middle of the sand castle.

 Building some sort of retaining wall.  I was too far away to hear that conversation.

 The Captain jumping over waves.

 Beach race!

Vacation Number 2 - The Beach

So as a graduation present, Johnny's parents invited us to stay at a timeshare condo with them for a week in Atlantic Beach.  It was wonderful.  Johnny, of course, had to work.  He rented a car and drove back to our old stomping grounds in Virginia, but I got to hang out with the kids and the grandparents at the beach.  What could be better?  

I guess the title of this post is misleading since this was actually our third vacation this year.  It's just the second one in a row.  And it was only April, wow.  Don't worry, we're done traveling until after this next baby gets here.  Which is coming sooner than I'd like to think about.  

Anyway . . . we were really close to one of North Carolina's aquariums, so we had to go.  As you can see from the jackets, it was a bit chilly, but weather in the 60s isn't bad.  It was still warm enough to play at the beach, play at the vacation property (which had an indoor pool, so that made it easy), and explore around the neighboring towns.  

We brought our own dinners and ate really well.  I was super sick of eating out.  That being said, we did go out Saturday night when we drove it because it was pretty late, so we went to IHOP and breakfast for dinner is never a bad thing.  Sunday was General Conference, so we stayed in and I made a bunch of hair bows while I listened.  I think this was the first Conference since I've had kids that they were able to keep themselves entertained.  It was wonderful.  Granted, our internet connection was horrible, so we only got to watch Sunday Morning, but it was still great.  Monday we had to take Johnny to the local airport to rent a car, so we spent the rest of the day playing at the park, playing mini golf (The Captain's new favorite thing), and generally relaxing.  We went to the beach every day, of course, but we didn't always bust out all the toys on account of the chilly weather.  We also went to the aquarium, the fort, and historic part of the neighboring city, known for its pirates.  I may have bought some pirate hats for our dress up.  

Well, enough talking, here are some pictures:

The Captain wanted to take pictures on every statute.

Here's the frog.

On the Nature Hike that is part of the aquarium.
The kids loved the floating bridge over the lake that got our feet wet.

Petting the rays.  Joy's favorite thing.  She loved how soft they were.
Even though there were a few school groups there that day, the rays
really loved to be petted, and seemed to like Joy a lot.
She also liked petting the crabs in the tide pool area.

Chase the sharks!
We saw and talked to divers in the shark tank twice.

Joy was mad at me, I don't remember why, so during the second
divers' presentation, she walked behind me to brood by this fish
tank.  It's complicated as to why I didn't go chase her down.
We'll stalk this one up to advanced pregnancy.

The Captain -- turtle doctor extraordinaire.

The two turtle doctors and their patients.

Making sand castles with grandpa.

Up next: tons of beach pictures.

Johnny's a Master

So, a week after we got home from Europe/South Africa, we road tripped it to North Carolina.  Why?

 To see this.

And this.

And this. 

I didn't think Johnny's MBA graduation would be such a big deal for me, but it kind of felt like we were getting married again.  They did such a great job with the ceremony. Everything was very family friendly.  It was just a wonderful day.  

Well, there was some waiting before the ceremony.  

I caught this picture a few minutes before.  The kids are on my phones (my old one I keep around for just such occasions), and Johnny's parents are on their devices.  I obviously had to take pictures to keep myself occupied since my devices were taken.

 And those teddy bears the kids are holding, yeah, they were giving them out to all the kids on the way in.

I did say it was an awesome program, right?  

Well, we stayed afterwards and enjoyed the food at the reception.  Then we went to the student center so Johnny could buy some swag.  Joy fell asleep in the car, so Grandma stayed behind with her, and The Captain and I headed out to a garden nearby on campus to take some 5 year old pictures.  

He was awesome because he showed me his "moves" by which he meant poses.  He loved doing the shoot and really got into it.  I guess I've been doing this with him for awhile.  These were some of my favorites:

 

He was being an explorer.