What a weekend

I always dread this time of year, although for a handful of reasons it is the best season here in Wilmington, Im still always bummed that winter is fast approaching. I am a summer kind of girl. My kids are summer kids, and the hubby is a warm weather junkie also. This summer has been different though. For the first time in roughly 8 years, I've spent this summer without KJ. It's really sucked. Today I was reminded of how much I miss her. Today was one of those days where because we knew our time was limited at the beach, we'd spend as much time at the water as we could. Especially on such a gorgeous day like today. Well, I went.....it was nice. Really great to be with my family, but not the same. Blah, Blah, Blah.... Sorry I dont know where that came from. I'm listening to sad, girly music. My original post was intended to share our awesome weekend in Raleigh together. Not complain about how much I miss, miss,miss, miss KJ. Back on track. This past weekend the Bentley's and us drove to my parent's house in Raleigh to meet up so we could see our favorite comedian Brian Regan. We truly invaded my parent's house with Chris, KJ, their two kids, Jamie, me, our three kids and our dog Kidd. It was chaos. Marvelous chaos. We pulled in around 6pm on Friday, dropped ALL the kiddies with my folks and walked out the door at 6:30 to drive to Durham. Laughed our buns off at the show, went out afterward for dinner/apps and drinks and came home around 12:30am. It was a fun, fun time. We always have such a great time together. It's just wonderful to see Jamie and Chris talk, laugh, share their thoughts together. I just love their friendship. Kinda reminds me of how KJ and I are. Saturday was spent watching the kids play. Remembering temperaments, idiosyncrasies, listening to how much language had been learned, or not learned when any one of them was falling to the ground throwing a fit. It was so good to see how well they got along, falling right back into the swing of things. KJ and I managed a trip to Target, alone with no children. That was really fun. Came home and geared up ourselves as well as our children for a Virginia Tech - Miami game. Turnout was victory. Bathed the children, put them to bed and spent another night of much needed quality time together. Really one of the best weekends I've had in a long time. All the times we've spent together seem so taken for granted when this past weekend was so cherished. Take a look why.

I mean..... the smiles

Meme

Playing Uno

Eating ribs during the game

Two precious babes

Tech took it out of Jamie and Chris
(sorry guys, had to post one of the whole gang)

Sarah Elizabeth and Riley

Where is Grace?

Good-bye Bentley's. We'll miss you!

Perfect Pairs

There is something special about these pairs!

B&E turned Birthday

Something really cool happened to our family this week. Our laptop came back.
I've got to preface this entry with a bit of background information. A few Tuesdays ago, maybe 3, I pulled into my driveway and noticed my dog standing on my front porch. In my head, I thought about how unusual this was for 2 reasons...1) I normally dont leave Kidd outside when I am not home, and 2) I vividly remember having to drag his old hind into the house b/c it was so stinkin' hot. Not thinking much of this at the time, I leave the kids in the car while I grab all of our junk, unlock the door and then head back out to help them out of carseats and inside. As I'm pushing the door open, it takes about 30 seconds for me to realize someone has broken into our house. The glass from the back door has been shattered and is all over the family room and the TV is gone. This is all I notice or care to notice as I turn around get back into my car, and call the police. Lots more unfolds, but for time sake I'll spare all the details. The cops and my hubby take care of all the nity gritty while I retreat to a friends house down the street to spare the children all the destruction to the house. After a long afternoon, I come home to find things turned upside down literally. Movie style unbelieveable. The only rooms not taken apart drawer by drawer, cabnet by cabnet, were the kids rooms. Every single item in my house sifted through, turned over, taken, or thrown on the floor. It was hard to see. Through it all though, Jamie and I felt this sense of peace. I know that sounds "Yea, right" but it is true. We weren't scared, didn't feel violated (although we did wash a ton of sheets, underwear, bathing suits.....) we just walked from room to room cleaning as much as we could so that our kids wouldn't know or sense anythng bad had happened. Occasionally, Jamie and I would hug, ask one another if he/she was okay, then be on to the next task. In all, we recognized that all we had lost was "stuff." Our family was safe and we could have cared less about anything else. Except, our laptop. One of the first things Jamie said to me when the police arrived and were searching the house was "We've just lost all of our pictures." They even took our hard drive that had the backups to our pictures. The videos of each childs birth. First days of school, first steps, first feedings, and the list goes on. So we really mourned this aspect of the robbery. We had hope though. We believed that we might get our pictures back, as far fetched as it seemed, we did think we might. A week or so goes by our hope dwindles a tad, we visit Costco and some other stores pricing laptops and cameras, video recorders, new televisions. We go on vacation and come back to find a card on our door from the police officer who was on our case. He says they have found the couple who broke into our home and they think they have recovered our LAPTOP! The one with all the pictures. Indeed they had. Jamie walks in the front door, home from work, not having said a word about having my laptop in his possession, with the birth of Riley playing on the screen. Prayers answered????? You bet. We sat together watching all the videos of the day our kids were born, silly pics of each one of them. The pictures you dont send to anyone, but cherish more than you can imagine. And we're so thankful. A little wowed too. Wowed that our cries were met with the goodness of trusting in our hope. This laptop has been my little reminder of that. Really pretty cool.

Although our camera is gone, the day before the break in, I uploaded the pictures from George's 3rd birthday. I am so glad about that. Upon request we spent the day at the beach with friends and family. We played in the surf, ate pizza and chocolate covered pretzels. Here are a few pics.

His new crocs.

The number 3 pinata.

After pizza and chocolate covered pretzels. Upon request of course.