{ Happiness } ::

Happiness is... 

 Going to the Aviation Museum with super rad friends and sitting in an airplane...

 

Happiness is checking out all the cool airplanes...

 

Happiness is practicing to fly an airplane (Brody would have done this all day if I had let him)...

 

Happiness is Brody trying to contain his excitement when taking a picture with mom...

   

 Happiness is playing outside with friends under an airplane, pure bliss for little boys i tell ya...

   

 Happiness is holding hands with friends (Brody loves to hold hands, and Beck is the perfect friend who likes to hold hands too)...

 

Happiness is dancing with friends...

   

 Happiness is Doughnuts...

 

Happiness is eating yummy Doughnuts with our super rad friends...

 

Happiness is having a good day!! 

 "Today was a good day. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one!!" - Dr. Seuss

{ Sunshine Served Daily } ::

a few weeks ago we went Blueberry picking with some friends! 


It all started here...   

And we did a lot of this...

   

 Finding lots of these beauties...

 

Resulting in lots of yummy goodness...

   

 We had an absolutely wonderful time and we both Loved picking the berries! It was a first for both of us! It was fun to be with friends and nothing better than hanging out with my little love bug! He really did an awesome job picking! This will definitely become a summer tradition for sure!

 

{ Summer Days } ::

we've spent many days at barnes and noble playing at the train in the kids section. we've woken up from naps and wait at the front door for daddy to get home from work. we've played sooo hard that we've had to lay down and take a break from all the fun. we've gone to the mall to ride the train, over and over again, its a love affair for this little boy!

 

we've gone to the science museum and had some science nerdy fun. we've found the frog boots i hide because its so blasted hot out, flip flops are a must, but if brody had the choice he'd wear his frog boots every single day. but his feet sweat in the them and well it's gross. but man alive i love him to bits and pieces it's crazy! more trips to barnes and noble to play and of course we have to stop in the music section and listen to songs. yeah we are cool like that.

 

tyson got called to be the Cub Master at church and his first big activity was a rain gutter regatta and he let me make the awards. i only had like an hour to bust them out, but i think they turned out so great and of course i was in heaven making them! brody likes to help tyson check his work email, he's very helpful if you can tell. a trip to Target would not be complete without a trip through the toy section - brody our photographer did a good job, as always. and what's an early morning thats not too hot or humid to go outside and sidewalk chalk. good times!

   

 a weekday breakfast of mickey mouse pancakes always makes me happy and my family happy and it's always more yummy when you eat mickey mouse. my water child...he LOVES to play in the water...so a hot day outside, calls for a fun day inside and playing in the sink is just the ticket = hours of fun! brody and i took a day trip out to the beach - yup that's the best picture i could get of us. Love him! he was yelling at seagulls telling them not to eat Nemo. ha! a picture from tyson's birthday lunch - and he was super surprised when the servers sang happy birthday to him!

we went on a family date to a Richmond Flying Squirrels baseball game. it was so hot and the team pretty much stinks. we've been to a few games now, pretty much for the fireworks at the end - and brody likes to get his groove on when the put on music. so its worth it - but really the team acts like they have never seen a bat or ball before. and days are not complete without playing the water, seriously its been SO HOT!!

one day brody said he wanted to paint a spaceship...so i said Ok! and i looked in the cupboard and found some goods and got my hot glue gun out and BAM! i created us some "spaceships"...see mom my art degree does come in handy! ;) we both loved every minute of it! we painted and i had tubes of glitter glue i bought at the dollar store and oh boy he loved those glitter glue sticks! such a fun activity!

just out together as a family! boy howdy i love these boys!! we've had some pretty fabulous summer evening thunder storms (love them!) and we saw a beautiful rainbow. a family lunch date in the car. we went to a bread store downtown called Montana bread company, its exactly like Great Harvest and OH SO YUMMY! we bought sandwiches and they had outdoor seating but it was raining so we just picnic'd it in the car. it was delish!!

and just this past weekend we moved!! yay!! we moved across town into a great place, close to awesome friends and really close to tyson's work. winning!! we love it so far and so happy we were able to make this move. And even better my brother came into town and helped us out so much. love him! 

so July's been good to us! I love my family heaps and gobs! they are best things ever!! i feel all warm and fuzzy just thinking of them. we sure are lucky to have each other! i can't believe it's almost August! we have so many more fun summer adventures ahead of us, I kinda can't wait to have more fun with family and friends! this is what summer is all about!

{ more fun than a barrel of monkeys } ::

Back in June, Tyson has a Statistics conference (sounds fun, huh?) in D.C. at Capitol One's headquarters - so we decided to tag along! While Tyson did his nifty statistics stuff during the day, Brody and i played. then in the evenings we got Tyson to ourselves for dinner and to play! it was a total win win for us all! Every night we ate ate at Cafe Rio! we were lucky and there was one minutes away from us! heaven i tell you, heaven! i was so happy i almost wanted to cry, but was way to busy eating to get that sappy!

   

on our first full day Brody and I slept in, ate breakfast in bed and played around our hotel suite. tyson joined us for lunch then he went back to work and brody and i headed into Georgetown to have some fun. it was a really hot day, so we spent sometime along the water front playing in the fountains. the water coming out felt like ice, which was nice because it was so warm but brody got cold pretty quickly. so after playing we walked over to Sprinkles cupcakes for a treat. it was nice to relax in the air conditioning and eating yummy cake! brody had his regular - vanilla cake with vanilla frosting with sprinkles and i tried the lemon cupcake. so good! after taking our time in Sprinkles we then headed back to the car but stopped off and walked through the canal paths. we got back to our room just in time to read some books and take a nap before tyson got back to our hotel room.

   

we had a blast enjoying our evenings with Tyson. we went swimming in the pool and relaxed watching some movies.

on our second day it was hot and rainy. a gross combination i tell ya! we headed down to the museums. we drove around for what felt like 100 hours trying to find a parking spot. those stink'in tour buses are everywhere right now and seriously take up every parking spot! just had to get there out there. anywhos...we finally found a great parking spot and we headed to the natural history museum. we checked out our favorite exhibits the dino bones, mammals, and oceans. and on TUESDAYS you can go see the butterfly exhibit for Free. so we hurried up stairs to get tickets and they had just given out the last bunch of them. SOB! So we sadly peeked through the windows and said hello to the butterflies. perhaps next time! after the natural history museum we made our way over to the air and space museum in the warm steamy rain. lovely. the air and space museum is pretty much a little boys dream come true. we love that place. after a couple of hours i realized our meter was about to run out so we both pretty much sprinted to the car, we made it just in time! you have to have your car moved by 4pm or you get towed. and cars were already being towed! we seriously got so lucky! we had some snacks and then brody fell right to sleep, so i just drove around until tyson was done with work!

on our last day we got a late checkout and brody and i took our time getting ready. we slept in, ate breakfast, danced around, played with cars and watched a movie, then finally decided to pack up and get things in the car. once we were all packed we headed over by the jefferson memorial and parked the car and started out trek. or should i say in brodys words...RUN! we ran. after a while cause it was hot, i would tell him to run so far ahead and then run back to me. it worked quite well until he was ready for me to pick him up. we made our way all the way over to the Lincoln memorial where we stopped for some popcorn and pop! after our little break, we ran some more. and then made our way along the water front. we played in the open park by some baseball fields, brody enjoyed himself while playing on a big mound of dirt with a few sticks and rocks. love it! and we watched helicopters fly really low over us. over and over again. it was pretty cool. we finally made our way back to the car and made our way to tyson. he was let out early in hopes to beat traffic (ha, yeah right!), we were smarter than that and we drove to cafe rio for one more yummy dinner. we are good now on cafe rio, pretty sure we wont be craving it for a while.

all and all it was a great few days, it was so much fun having little adventures away from home with brody! he's the best little sidekick and i love him to pieces. he is so great! And we were super happy we got to tag along with Tyson! we are super lucky to have such a great daddy who works so hard! we are pretty lucky too in the fact his work encourages their employees to have their families travel with them! so great! and perk they totally take care of us! double win! we kinda can't wait for the next travel trip!

{ happy 4th of July } ::

Happy 4th of July! we spent our morning with friends eating yummy food...we spent the afternoon as a family playing and hanging out, celebrating tyson's birthday and spending the evening once again eating yummy food, playing the in water and setting off fireworks that come to find out are illegal in our county, opps! nonetheless it has been an awesome day! 

we sure are proud to be Americans! HAPPY 4TH!!

{ Our Favorite } ::

Happy Happy Birthday to our most favorite person ever!

we are sure are lucky to have this guy as the best husband

and papa bear out there! 

we LOVE you oh so much!

xoxo

{ that one time in ohio } ::

let's travel back to memorial day weekend when we hopped in the car and headed back up to our favorite stomping grounds! 

we spent at week in columbus enjoying all the things we've always loved doing! we got to see our most favorite people, eat yummy food and have an absolutely wonderful time! 

 pretty much all my pictures are random - i didn't do the best job of documenting everything we did. we were having too much fun to worry about pictures! but i'm glad i got the pictures that i did take! 

 so this is kinda how things went down ...

 

the boys bonded by getting ready together (so cute, thank you very much!) 

we swam in our hotel pool 

we visited our favorite Goodwill store! classy, i know! isn't that what everyone does on vacation? and while shopping brody got in a workout with his "up and downs" as he likes to call them. and of course we had to take a walk around where we use to live and visit the dairy queen that is located just a block or two from our old house. good times!! 

 and we ate...we ate a lot! because well, eating is something we do best! and on top of it, we've been craving all the yummy foods you can ONLY get in Columbus. be glad i didn't document every single eating adventure!

 

northstar cafe and piada were just two of the many favs! and on top of that goodness we got to eat with some of our favorite ohio state university statisticians! whom all just need to graduate and come get jobs at capitol one! just sayin! 

 

and if i'm going to keep talking about food...

 

then i will tell you how we of course had to stop off at Buckeye Donuts one morning for breakfast! 

 and well, while i am at it...

 

we had to enjoy the most perfect "slushie/slurpee" known to mankind! our favorite mt.dew slushie/slurpee whatever you want to call it goodness! okay...so moving on... other fascinating highlights also included...

 

riding the bus! if you didn't know...it's one of brody's ultimate favorite things to do! you can read more about that here! 

 we also...

 

spent a few days at our favorite water park Zoombezzi bay! our passes were still good, that's one reason we went back to ohio...was so use our passes one more time! we had a blast!! 

 and on top of that...

 

we had a play date with friends at the COSI (science museum) and ate lunch at noodles.

 we BBQ'd with some of our favorite friends...oh how we love them all! 

brody got to see some of his favorite friends! 

my amazing friend kelli put together a little birthday get together for brody at the park and we ate cupcakes and ice cream sandwhichs and played! 

 and if that wasn't enough...

 

we had to take a picture with Brutus...because we all love Brutus! 

 and finally the cherry on top of our trip...

 

hanging out with our extended family the Tolman's! we just love them so much! tyson and brody got to meet baby Frost for the first time and brody just adored her! 

 Oh Ohio! there's a song that goes a little something like this... 

I wanna go back to Ohio State

 To old Columbus town, 

To the stadium to hear the band, 

By far the finest in the land, 

I wanna go back to Ohio State

 To old Columbus town, 

I wanna go back, 

I gotta go back,

 To Ohio!!! 

 I pretty much have been singing that song since we moved to Virginia. And even with multiple trips back the past few months...I always wanted to stay there and not come back. but this time was different. this time i had my boys with me and well...coming back to Virginia wasn't so bad, probably because we were coming back home together. i'm not sure what it was. but i was glad we are here. 

 i am so happy for everything and memories i hold near and dear to my heart that that amazing place offered us. but i am happy to be here in richmond and be in a new place that offers us more memories and adventures and on top of it the people we've met are so amazing, and for that i am grateful. i am sure i will long to be in columbus for a while longer, and i know we will be heading back for season upon season of football games. but it feels good when you finally are in a place and are happy to be where you are! and even if virginia is our home forever or wherever we be...we will always be BUCKEYES!! 

 THE END.