Church Picnic

Last night Tom & I enjoyed a wonderful date night where Doc Sue had all 4 kids sleep over at her apartment - woohoo! We visited with some different friends, then went out for a late dinner and were able to wake up and relax to get ready for church this morning. It was a wonderful time for us - we really enjoyed it!

This morning church was later than normal followed by our annual Labor Day Weekend Church family picnic across the street from the church. It was very fun - all of the kids ate and played and all of the adults were able to eat and visit. Here are a few photos to commemorate the event (only the first one is actually at the picnic - the rest were taken once we were back at home).

Catherine & Mommy at the picnic

All of the boys in "party shirts" for the picnic.
Daddy giving Catherine kisses.
Catherine and Daddy
Catherine being mischievous again unloading Mommy's purse after the picnic.

Mischief!

Catherine has entered the mischievous stage! She's in to EVERYTHING!! She's always trying to find unsecured makeup, medicine, markers, etc. She also likes to be a "helper". Today while I was loading the dryer with wet clothes, she was taking them out again. When I stopped her and was finishing the clothes, she went downstairs and decided to climb on a chair in the living room to play with the light switches. As she was doing this, she looked up and saw the alarm keypad and pushed the "fire" button setting off the very loud alarm. Thankfully ADT called before sending anyone and I was able to say that it was a false alarm. This is the face of mischief:

She's a tutti fruity cutie alright that gets into lots of trouble! We're looking forward to a night with just Tom and I tomorrow as the kids spend the night with Doc Sue - Thank you, Doc Sue & beware!

First Day of School

After our crazy summer, we returned from the last trip the 12th of Aug and today the 14th of Aug, all three of the boys started school at the same school - Jonah in kindergarten, Adam in 1st grade, & Jack in 5th grade! Here are some photos as we walked to school this morning:

Here are the boys in front of their school with their school mascot, the lynx.

Jonah will still be half day with the same teacher Adam had last year - she's wonderful! Adam will be full-day school for the first time this year - wow! We are looking forward to the year and think it will be a good one!

The Day After....

As I mentioned in the previous post, we were all very tired from our trip. Here it is, the day after we returned and the boys are running up and down our halls pushing Catherine & lots of things in the laundry basket.



Then things got rerally interesting. Jonah & Adam decided to go outside and in their excitement and rush to get home, Jonah tripped and hit his head on the concrete. These photos do not do justice to how big this wound was and this is the size after holding ice on it for about 20 minutes! Poor Jonah!

Meanwhile, while we were tending to Jonah and making sure that he was feeling alright and we shouldn't go to the doctor, Catherine disappeared upstairs. When I called to her, she didn't answer. When I got to the bottom of the stairs, she was sitting at the top and held out my lipstick - here's what I saw:

I guess it could have been worse!

The trip home on the 12th

Since we had such a busy itinerary including an early morning wake-up for the plane ride home, everyone was a bit tired. Catherine wanted a drink which we didn't have because we couldn't bring liquids through security and we were waiting to get a drink on the plane. She decided to express her displeasure by laying on the floor and fake crying - thankfully it wasn't loud, so we just laughed and took pictures - her brothers also thought it was funny - they're in the last photo.



Thankfully Doc Sue was at the airport to pick us up. We rushed home to get ready for the boys' school "Ice Cream Social" which is a time to see their classrooms, meet their teachers & eat ice cream. Doc Sue thought we might be tired & helped us all by cooking dinner for us that night - very nice!

Visit With the Hollands on the 11th

One of the stops on our itinerary was very brief - we were going to our friends' the Holland's for dinner one night, but their baby girl arrived the day before so we postponed for a different day and were able to see their three boys and new baby girl when she was less than a week old!

Adam climbing a tree in their backyard.

Adam and Jeremiah playing with lightsabers and swords!


Benjamin & Phillip swinging.

Me holding Gabrielle.

All of the kids with the mommies.

All of the kids with the daddies.

Virginia/Washington DC Trip

This was a whirlwind trip - fun, but exhausting! Here was the basic itinerary:
6 Aug - arrive at airport at 6:45pm - get car & bags and head to the Cates' house in Alexandria
7 Aug - pack up to drive to Freeman's in Manassas
8 Aug - pack up to drive to Va Beach hotel/meet the Farnham’s/late night w/HS friends
9 Aug - hang out at beach all day w/Farnham's & Chandley's/reunion dinner
10 Aug - leave hotel/Prince of Peace 11:00 service/tour Tom's old house/Meyer's for lunch with many old friends/drive to Fredericksburg to visit Kirk's/return to Freeman's house
11 Aug - hang out at Freeman's/stop by Holland's/return to Cates' house to spend the night
12 Aug - get up EARLY to reach an 8:35am departing flight from National Airport

Whew! It flew by really fast and there were some friends in the area we didn't get to visit because we couldn't squeeze it all in and the drives to and from the Beach on Friday night and Sunday afternoon were horrible traffic! We didn't get pictures at every stop with all of our friends, but here are some photos - first Tom's friends from the reunion:

Steve Cook HS photo and now.

Nicole (White) Tutko, Chrissy (Edgar) Rollyson, Donna Turner

John Farnham & Kevin Copeland

John Farnham, Mr. Croom, Jim Mizelle, Chrissy Rollyson, Tom, & Debbie Coleman

The Torkelson & Farnham families at the hotel - the kids had a fun time together at the beach and they all went to sleep in one room with 2 babysitters while the adults went to the reunion dinner.

The view from our hotel on the beach.

The Farnham's daughter is also named Catherine and she and Jonah are the same age and had a fun time together - here's the farewell hug!

Jack's Birthday

We celebrated Jack's birthday on Saturday, 2 August - yes, Tom & Jack's birthdays are one day apart. 10 years ago we were at our home in Virginia discussing where to go eat for Tom's birthday when we had to go to the hospital instead and the next morning Jack arrived! We started the day by opening some presents in the morning - lots of help from his two brothers!

Woohoo! Star Wars Legos!

Calvin & Hobbes (or "Clavin & Hobbies") is so funny!

Jonah giving his big brother a hug. He wants to get on his good side so that he might be able to play one or both of the new Playstation games that Jack received - Chicken Little & Indiana Jones Legos.

We ended the day with a party at Glow Golf for family and two of Jack's friends from school. Here's Tom, Doc Sue (or Doctor Susan), and Catherine enjoying the golf:

Grandpa T & Grandma Rosemary also enjoyed the golf - note the great scenery - cameras can't really capture the blacklight atmosphere that made everything glow - it was really cool!
Adam & Jonah also had fun!
Here's Jack and his friends Robert & Christian.
Here's the cool golf cake that Jack wanted.
We all had a wonderful day - though Jonah and Adam had meltdowns at the end and bedtime was welcomed by all!

Tom's Birthday

We were able to celebrate Tom's birthday on Friday, August 1, while the Torkelsons were visiting. Here are some pictures of Tom opening presents:

The kids got Daddy a nice yellow hat from the US Senior Open tournament. All of the children, Mommy, Grandpa T & Grandma Rosemary went to the Military Appreciation Day practice round of the tournament on Wed. It was free for all of us and the kids received many free goodies, we all had free lunch & the boys were able to get many of the players to sign their hats - a very fun day and very nice course at the Broadmoor!

Of course, Catherine had to try out the hat for Daddy - she loves hats!

We all went to On the Border to celebrate Tom's birthday for dinner. It was a great meal (though Grandpa T & Doc Sue may say otherwise). Once we returned we took this group shot out back.