Pork, Peanut, &Pine Festival

This year we decided to check out the Pork, Peanut & Pine Festival along with Grandma and Grandpa. I hadn't heard of it before this year, but I guess it's a pretty big deal around here. It required a ride on the ferry, which is always fun. :)  
The PP&P was on an old farm/plantation and included lots of food vendors (BBQ etc :)), community and craft vendors, a tractor pull (a definite highlight - see pics below), old car show, live music, petting zoo, etc. On our way in we past the fire fighters table and they were giving out free hats to kids.

Being a girly girl, it didn't take Evie long to realize that if she held the hat by its elastic chin strap, she could make it into a purse! We spent quite a bit of time collecting flowers for her "purse" :)
Evelyn's favorite animals right now are kitties, piggies, and bunnies. While there weren't any cats at this festival, she was *thrilled* by the pigs and bunnies that she got to meet (among other animals)! You can tell by her face how delighted she was, especially with the tiniest pig. :)  
Choo Choo was, uh, quite the pig! *I* was slightly terrified. I was impressed that Evie wasn't!
 
The other highlight of the day was the tractor pull - lol. Quite the experience. Evie loved it, although it got a little loud.

Here was another spectator with us.

They had four different kinds of mini tractors as well and they were hosting a kids tractor pull later in the day. Evie didn't participate in that, but she did enjoy trying Farmall out. ;) Nathan has a mini John Deere tractor just like this at his parents which Evie also loves. Maybe we can get her practicing on that one so she'll be set for the pull next year. ;)
It POURED on us at the end. Here's a soggy, tired but happy Evie. :)

1 Month!

I can't believe it's been a month already! Neither can Gracie. ;)
She is such a part of our family, it's hard to remember what it was like without her. :) It's so wonderful watching her and Evie grow every day. :)
We're working on plumping her up, but she's still a bit scrawny as you can see. :)
She's such a sweetie. She loves to be warm (very warm), to be held and snuggled, to chew on her hands, and is very curious about her world around her - especially her big sister.
While very sweet and getting more chill each day, Grace does have a tendency to go from 0 to 60 - going from happy to very upset quite quickly. :)
She also has the two sweetest dimples! I'm so excited! I always hoped all our kids would get Nathan's dimples. We're excited to see her sweet smile more soon and not just when she accidentally does it in her sleep. :)


We love you, Grace Elizabeth!!

(I almost just typed Caroline Grace - I need to work on keeping my sisters and daughters straight! :p)

More Goodbyes

So we love where we live and we're glad that we got to stay here after law school, but one thing that we don't love is how transient the area is (especially our age range) between the college and military! We've made friends with too many students that have moved away! :( While the moving is sad, the friendships have been so wonderful and more than worth it and we love having friends all over the country. :)
This week we said goodbye to two more families, the Bickings and McMillans.
Sarah and I became friends shortly after we moved here. Not long after we also became friends with a guy named Brent who moved to the area to attend W&M. Just over a year later we were attending their wedding! :)

A year and a half later we had Evelyn and Adeline just 3 months apart! :) Brent, Sarah and Adeline are getting ready to move to Scotland for Brent to pursue his masters at St. Andrews. Adeline and Sarah came to explore Jamestown with us on Friday. Sarah is a teacher and has been so busy between that and being a wife and mom that we haven't seen them since spring break or before. Evie and Addie were so sweet and played so well together; we're sad that they're about to move half way around the world! We tried to get them to stand in Virginia (Evie) and Scotland (Addie) on the big map at Jamestown, but.... with two active, happy toddlers, that's nearly impossible. ;)
They loved running around the fort and stalking the chickens and roosters. :)
It was such a hot day that we came back to our place for lunch and hanging out. The favorite game was Adeline pushing Evelyn in Grace's swing.

_______________________________
Our other goodbye of the week was to Collin and Margaret McMillan. We met Collin the same way we did Sarah, through our church home group. A couple months into home group Collin started talking about this amazing girl named Margaret. :) We loved getting to know them as a couple through home group and a great camping trip that the four of us took in the Shenandoah Valley. Two years later we were also attending their wedding. :)
Collin and Margaret are both super brilliant. Collin just finished his PhD here at W&M and is going to be a professor at Notre Dame and Margaret is returning to the student life to pursue her masters degree, also at Notre Dame. We've been in the same home group as them for several years and Margaret and I were also in book club together this past year. We'll miss them so much! They came over this week for one final night of board games and dessert. :) We didn't get a picture of all of us but here are Margaret and Gracie bonding. ;)
As a side note, as we've had various friends move, we've inherited a lot from their pantries and freezers. Margaret and Collin win the prize though for the best hand-me-downs: fillet mignon, at least a pound of great smoked applewood bacon, and some nice vodka (no, being a mother of a 20 mo old and 1 mo old isn't that bad - it's actually quite wonderful - I've just been wanting to try making my own vanilla. ;)). Thanks Collin and Margaret!! ;)

We're going to the zoo, zoo, zoo...

This past Saturday looked we didn't have any plans so we decided to head to the Norfolk Zoo. I went once last summer with Evie but wanted to go back again with Nathan, especially now that Evie is older. The Norfolk Zoo isn't huge - very manageable in 3-4 hours which is about as long as a toddler, newborn, and their parents will last in the heat and humidity. :) While not too huge, it is quite beautiful and well maintained...
...and has a pretty wide selection of the classic zoo animals.
Evie's favorite part may have been the zoo train... :p
...although she found all the animals pretty fascinating as well (much more so than her little siser :)).
The tortoise was very intriguing (definitely bigger than all the turtles we spot around here!)
The statues that you could climb on were pretty neat too. :)
We got there in time to watch the kangaroos get their breakfast. Watching them hop around and get excited about their salad breakfast was really fun. Evie wanted a closer look, but we stopped her.
"Well now you're awfully small..."
The very cool birds guarding their nest.
The bears were super active and so fun to watch!
I realize that I didn't get a picture of the elephants, zebras, lions, snakes (obviously) monkeys, etc, but we'll just have to go back again sometime. :)