More Creative Cousins!

The girls think this is the best video they've made yet with the cousins. It is from this past Thursday, when we gathered at Jon and Courtney's to dine with my aunt and uncle who were visiting from upstate New York. 

Watch and have fun!

Creative Cousins

Most of the time when we get our kids together with my brother's kids, this happens. :) My niece uses her phone to do this! Isn't it awesome? Magic in less than two minutes! This one is from back in September.

Let the fun begin!

Well, at least I HOPE it's fun! The girls had some friends overnight on Friday who've learned how to play Dutch Blitz, a game I spent way too much time and competitive energy playing all through college and into my early twenties.

It's a card game that looks like it's manufactured by Amish people. All I have to say is the Amish must be pretty competitive. I've participated in some pretty heated rounds of Dutch Blitz. One summer when my friend Diana and I were working together at RVR, we kept one game running through the entire summer. (One hand of Dutch Blitz will run the average player between 12-25 points. Our game was well into the 7,000 point range if I remember correctly.) In truth, I remember the raging competitive part with great nostalgia and warmth. I'm weird that way.

So tonight Alan and the girls and I played a lower-key version of it as teams of two...and it was pretty fun. We'll try to keep it as low-key as possible for as long as possible. It was really pleasant to play as a family.

However, I admit that the first person who comes over and wants to play the hard core version of Dutch Blitz with me is going to make my day! :)

Our Girls

More moments from 2014. Here's Amelia watching cousin Jennie and her new husband, Jed, dance at their wedding reception. I love the rapt look on her face. We have an eight year old daughter...for a few more months. :)

Weddings are such happy events.

Another picture from the Deep Creek hike. Wow they are lovely..

And Alan took this artistic shot from behind the decorative rails of Mom and Dad's front porch. There is our Evelyn, dancing on the lawn. I love her creativity and earnest longing to perform it for an audience. 

Family Portraits

We have very few pictures of the four of us--but check this out! In 2014, I think we had FOUR pictures of the four of us! One of them was in the previous post, a selfie from our hike on Black Friday.

Then there's this one, taken on a bike ride at one of our favorite beach state parks whose name I've conveniently forgotten. It's in Delaware and we usually spend a day there every time we vacation in Ocean City. The bike rentals are free!

And this one from the Swallow Falls hike near Deep Creek Lake--another hike we do annually with the Bissets who gather for the annual weekend of fishing, eating, and hanging out together.

The fourth picture was taken at RVR during Evelyn's Zip Line Birthday Party. My friend Jennifer, who works at RVR and whose daughter was one of the party guests, snapped a photo of the four of us wearing our zip line gear. The picture isn't stored on the computer from which I'm blogging, so I can't include it here just yet, but we put it on our first-ever family picture Christmas card.

So that's something else that 2014 was--the year of the family picture! Isn't that nice.

Black Friday

We spent it in Patapsco State Park, where Alan and I did a lot of mountain biking back in the day. It's incredibly refreshing and satisfying to spend hours in the woods. And even if we have to do some uphill coaxing, it's still worth it to get to the good vantage points.

Gymnasts

Gymnastics is the chosen sport at the moment. I like it because it's once a week always at the same time. And they like it!!