Catching up

There has been so much going on since the end of May that I have barely had time to breathe, much less blog, so I will attempt to do a post on everything we've been up to. Prepare yourselves--this is a lengthy one. Or you can just scroll down and peruse the pictures.

We went to my Aunt Dearing's Memorial Daze campout over Memorial Day weekend and had the best time. The Gillilands came with us and our children entertained themselves for the most part, allowing the adults to have fun and relax as well. We were also able to check out Stephen and Cambridge's tailgate market in Richmond while we were there, which blew us away. The farmers tailgate markets in Asheville are tiny compared to Richmond's South of the James market. If you are in Richmond on a Saturday, check out the Common Ground booth and say hello to my brother. :) We also were able to extend the long weekend and go to the Chesapeake Bay for one night.

Harding and Derek specialized in waking everyone up at 7 a.m.

Shelby and Aubrey being their usual cute selves.

Harding kisses our hostess, Aunt "DeDe"

Stephen being a salesman:We had a hard time pulling the kids away from this booth at the market.

I forced Stephen and Cambridge to pose in front of their Common Ground booth: The Gillilands minus Derek: Harding and Derek running into the bay (and screaming): We finished making the rounds for Shelby's various one-year follow-up doctor appointments (including seeing her neurosurgeon at Duke Children's) and everything looked pretty good.

Dr. Grant attempts to get Shelby to smile for their picture: Shelby has pretty much been sick the entire month of June. There was a terrifying 5 day period during the first half of the month when she did not eat a thing and drank very little--this was very perplexing to the speech therapist we see for feeding and scared Trip and me to death. I finally called Dr. Love (our wonderful pediatrician who I can't say enough good things about), and he said, "Bring her in, I bet she has hand foot and mouth virus". Sure enough, when he shined the light in her mouth, there were sores in the back which had probably been causing Shelby a whole lot of pain. I have never been so glad for my daughter to be sick. Since then, Shelby has been reinfected with H/F/M and also gotten a cold. She is on the mend right now, and I hope it sticks for awhile. Luckily, Harding has managed to stay healthy.

The kids and I took a road trip with my parents to Zanesville, Ohio for my friend Kelly's beautiful wedding at Dillon State Park. The drive through TN, WV, and southern Ohio was exceptionally beautiful--especially the WV turnpike. We stayed at a cabin at the state park and had a great time catching up with the Anderson family over the course of the weekend. At the wedding reception, Harding became obsessed with dancing with the bride and stalked Kelly all over the room. Luckily, she was willing to humor him several times. At one point, Harding actually cut in when Kelly was dancing with another kid.

Dad tries to distract Harding into behaving at the rehearsal dinner:

Cheezing for the camera:
This would have been a great picture if Shelby had cooperated: Harding didn't want to take a break from dancing for a picture:
Cutting a rug with the bride:

We also went to Folly Beach, SC for a couple days to celebrate my future sis-in-law Ashlee's wedding. Harding was the only boy at this "bachelorette" vacation and was sure to tell Trip that he had been hanging out with lots of pretty girls. Harding, who is overly cautious about most things, is fearless when it comes to the ocean and wanted to be in the water the entire time. Shelby decided that she was not a fan of the beach. To sum up her point of view: it was hot and the wind kept blowing sand onto her overly sun-screened body--plus she hates for anything to be on her head and I made her wear a sunhat when she was outside. Keeping up with two small children at the beach was a challenge, but I had a lot of help from the other girls and managed to get some relaxation time in myself.

I love this picture of Chris, Harding (and Riley) walking:

All the girls and Harding:In addition to all the traveling we did last month, I also took my first graduate counseling course, which I enjoyed very much. One down, many many more to go. I have decided to slowly pluck away at my masters degree and only take a class or two at a time. It will take me forever to finish, but family time is too important right now while my kiddos are little!

Here are a couple more photos:

Harding at the Asheville splash park "Splasheville" Chris helping Harding hold his sweet cousin Riley: