BnS Whipple Family

We don't get around to posting on the blog very often, but wanted to share at least some highlights from our summer.

Summer started with Arden graduating from Kindergarten.

Arden's summer camp included two field trips each week. On Fridays they went swimming at a local pool and on Wednesdays there was a trip to some other type of place (for example, Smithsonian Air & Space Museum, roller skating, a Washington Nationals game). Here are some photos from the Nats game that I took since I was a chaperone.

Here's what we saw when the field trip buses returned to the daycare (can you spot Reed...click on the photo to make it larger)?

Arden was super exicted that he was old enough to go to VBS and he LOVED it.

Movie night for Arden and mommy. We don't go to movies often at all so we spoiled ourselves and went to a new theater where we watched Minions while relaxing in leather recliners.

The next several photos and videos are from the "summer block party" that was held in the local Wegman's plaza. It was nice to be able to test Reed out on some small rides before our trip later in the summer to an amusement park.

This was Arden's first attempt at a rock climbing wall. I thought for sure that he would chicken out completely or at least after the first 5 feet, but he did much better than expected!

Pool party time! We went to a pool that had a diving board and both boys were brave enough to jump from it. They have both improved with "swimming" significantly this summer. Neither of them can really swim on their own, but they are much more comfortable in the water. Arden now only uses arm floaties if he is alone in water 4 feet or deeper. Reed has gone from clinging to us to paddling himself around and floating on both his front and back.

We waited all summer, but finally took a real vacation mid-August. We headed to North Myrtle Beach, but took a detour to Carowinds Amusement Park near Charlotte, NC on the way. We made each of the boys a color coded map of what rides they could go on, which they studied a lot (they get their love of maps from daddy).

Part of the park is in NC and part in SC, so Arden was excited to walk with one foot in each state.

Arden was a good big brother and rode a bunch of little kid rides with Reed.

The roller coaster and Scrambler were the two "big" rides that Reed was able to go on. He didn't ask to go on the roller coaster a second time, but he said "I want the Scrambler to make me dizzy again".

Arden rode a bunch of roller coasters, including looping ones now that he is tall enough. We weren't sure if he was going to be brave enough to actually go on upside rides, but he did it and LOVED it (he gets that from mommy and daddy). He even enjoyed the upside down pirate ship ride that stops you upside down, but I didn't get good video of that.

Mommy hung out with Reed while daddy took Arden on some big kid rides.

We saved the water ride for last since we didn't want to walk around wet. Reed wasn't tall enough to go on that ride either so it was just mommy and Arden. We got soaked, but Arden still wanted to experience the splash bridge afterwards (sorry that the action doesn't start til around 40 seconds in).

Onto the beach, which both boys loved. Reed needed to have an eye kept on him constantly since he is fearless of water and would just take off running in to go get daddy or Arden. He was knocked down several times by waves and would respond with "the water tastes yucky". Reed enjoyed finding "pretty sea shells" with mommy even though what he picked up was just large broken pieces.

Looking at huge fish in a pond at Barefoot Landing.

Where did Reed's legs go?

Oh no Reed's legs are missing again

No legs again for Reed (yes he loved getting "stuck in the sand").

Reed was also enjoyed finding older ladies who were substitute grandmas for him (he even called them grandma). He took off running down the beach after this lady after she said goodbye and walked a couple hundred yards away.