Here and There and Everywhere

We've been here and there throughout the past month. Mostly there though. Savoring the last precious weeks of summertime.We spent the last three weeks in Ohio visiting my family and having a grand ole' time. We got to spend quality time with my Yiayia, who thank God, is 1 treatment away from finishing her chemo, and the rest of our family.We packed quite a bit of life in those three short weeks too. We celebrated Lucky's nameday and birthday, visited the monastery in Saxonburg, drove to Washington D.C., Ace lost 4 teeth, was able to serve in the altar 5 times, went to Browns training camp and had a few more happy surprises while we were there too. ;)Ace really enjoys learning about American History, so my parents rented a 12-passenger van and we all piled in and drove to DC. We only stayed for 2 1/2 days but were able to see pretty much everything we wanted except for a couple of places that closed early.The boys loved seeing some of the exhibits at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History that they recognized from the movie Night at the Museum. Ace also really enjoyed Ford's Theatre. The smartest thing we did was buy tickets for the double decker bus. It was $35 per adult/$16 for children, which sounds a little pricey but it was a 2-day pass to anywhere in the city. It saved us *alot* of walking.We also threw a birthday party for Coleen and Lucky. They had so much fun! It was great getting together with the whole family and watching all the kids play. I was so happy to be there for my precious little cupcakes first birthday. She is such a cutie pie! Her facial expressions and "conversations" are so dramatic, it cracks me up.We did a cupcake theme for the party, pink and purple for Coleen and blue and green for Lucky. We made an assortment of cupcakes, with the help of some of our cousins, for the cupcake bar and we made giant cupcake cakes to sing Happy Birthday with.Lucky got really bashful halfway through Happy Birthday and was overwhelmed by all the great presents he received...But by the end of the party he was content with just a balloon and a bag of candy.Now we're back home, buried in four suitcases worth of laundry and enjoying the last lazy days of summer with root beer floats, snow cones and lots of snuggle time.