Summer Fun!

July! It is already JULY!! We have had such a fun and exhausting summer so far - and the best way to tell the summer to date is through pix!

We started our adventures in Vermont! Cousin Danny got married to adorable Tori and the wedding was beautiful!! Aunt Rita and Uncle Vin really know how to throw a party and as always, the views of Vermont were amazing! Such a perfect setting for a beautiful wedding! The kids were GREAT in the car! Who knew that all we needed were old school CD walkmen to keep everyone happy and chill for a 10 hour ride!

We all loved seeing all the cousins too! Since the last time we have all been together, FOUR baby boys (including Kyle!) have been born. Kyle and James hit it off within minutes! They ran and played so hard that Kyle puked! but kept on running! Kyle still asks to play with James! Too cute!

James and Kyle in Aunt Rita's yard

Look at that setting behind Riley - wow!

The week following Vermont we headed down to NC to see Grandma and Papa for the annual Member/Guest tournament! I didn't take pix but the kids had a blast swimming in the pool and biking all over the neighborhood! Riley has improved her swimming so much and Kyle is a little fish in his own right - too bad he can't pull his head out of the water - he'd be on swim team! The guys didn't win but played really good golf!

The following weekend we were actually in town! It is a good thing too, b/c we finally got to join in on all the fun of one of Aidens birthday's! Happy 6 birthday big guy! The party was at a Mad Science Lab and the kids had a GREAT time. Below, Ri is floating on a disk and twirling all around the room!

And of course this past weekend was the 4th of July! We had so much fun on Papa's boat, in the pool, and watching the fireworks over the water on the boat!

snuggle time with papa!

Matching suits:-)

Swimming in the Bay

Tubing! Kyle was the first to give it a shot but Riley loved it most of all! Where as Kyle and Lexa cried at the first big bump, Riley yelled "yippee!!"

Grandma had a super idea this year... we boated out to watch the fireworks and after, Papa dropped us off at the pre-parked car. The ladies drove the kids home and Papa, Eric, and Justin drove the boat home in the pitch black night:-) We all made it home safe!

Grandma and the kiddos!

Kyle's first Flying Squirrell game! smushed between 2 doll babies, Ruthie and Cerys!

Riley at the game - the kids hung out happy till the game ended (10:30 - not bad!) Cotton candy and icecream helped!

Nutzy!

Riley stayed with Lexa down in NC this week so Kyle has been an only child... it is a good thing he has a sibling b/c he definitely needs someone to talk to! He has been a non stop chatter box since we got home and has been cracking us up. Here he got into Riley hello kitty stamps and made himself "look like Morris' daddy" (a friend from school) "who has lots of tattoos"!! (update: I saw Morris' daddy this morning and Kyle's tattoo's below don't even come close to the ink this guy has on him:-) LOL!)

The end to many things...

It may be the beginning of the summer, but this week was PACKED with the end of many things/events/times for the Surratt Pack! The rush of summer is on and I think the best way of explaining our week is through pix... enjoy...

Here is Kyle - our little fish! He is nearly a danger to himself in the pool... we really need to get this kid into swim lessons - he is FEARLESS! We spent the afternoon at Bebe's house saying goodbye to her amazing house and pool! We have had soooo many great times there and will always have those memories. Most importantly, we'll have tons of new memories now that Bebe will live so close to us!!Riley graduated from Preschool! Her school put on a GREAT show at Cool Spring Elementary and Riley walked across stage on her own and sang beautifully!
Ri and her man, Conner. Conner is the cutie who gave Riley a monster solid chocolate kiss for valentines day... we are keeping on eye on this one:-) He is moving too fast for our taste:-)

Riley and 3 other girls had a little solo where they waved rainbows in front of the stage while singing a rainbow song!
Kyle and his buddy Grayson from school

The rest of the weekend was spent at 2 birthday parties and watching Lexa perform in her gymnastics recital. She is such a GREAT gymnast!

A lot of babies were born recently as well and we brought meals to 4 of them this weekend. Luckily we were able to spend a little time with Berkeley and her crew! The girls loved holding baby David!

Berk, Grant, and baby David - soooo cute!!

We also had our last tennis class for the season. As it turns out, both girls are pretty good and really enjoy tennis! Yippee!!

Kyle at tennis - he can't wait till he is old enough to jump into the action! soon, very soon!

Riley also got to get all dressed up for pix day at dance class, therefore also her last dance class!

She is going to miss the recital but I got some video of the girls during practice this night (not the official dress rehearsal, we miss that too) and I'll try to post those later.

The best part of dance for Riley is definitely being able to wear make up for these pix!!

DelFest 2010

Year two - DelFest, Awesome! We had such a great time again this year and even though I was skeptical of the rain, I'm in again for next year! When we 1st pulled up, the skies opened...

This is us sitting in the car, praying the rain would stop so the next 4 days wouldn't be miserable! See the rain behind us... there was LOTS!


The rain died down for a moment, so the adult jumped out and attempted to put tents up and got very wet! The kids played in the tents for a while till another storm came through and Riley had a spell of PTSD as a result of last years storm!! She got through it and below is a pix of the girls after the storm blew through and music was on! (They are dancing and shaking their booties!)

Eric and Justin out at Music Meadow (Lexa and Kyle in the left corner playing)

We got Riley and Lexa their own hoops this year - they are definitely future hoop dancers!
Cool man Kyle at the side stage taking in some bluegrass!

The kids played soooo well and loved the music and tent living!

Our hooping queens! Aside from the hooping, Riley favorite part of the trip was the cotton candy they had the last night we were there.

This is Riley late night (nearly 10pm! Unheard of back home!) She also slept till 9am every day - also unheard of back home!

E & K chillin!

Ya-Mon!

We are literally heading out the door in an hour for our next adventure, so I thought I'd better tell this adventure before we leave!!

This past week Grandma came and hung with the kids while we were in Jamaica with a bunch of great friends! The kids were wonderful and LOVED having Grandma watch them (and missed Papa so much - who is in Albany with FEMA) Grandma spoiled them rotten, including throwing them their very own tiki party (see pix below). They walked and hit the park daily, went to Red Robin (with Bebe too! what a treat!) and McDonald's and even got to watch the Squequal again! (Alvin and the Chipmunks for those of you who aren't up on kids films!)

The BEST part about this trip (aside from the TONS of fun we had), we didn't have to worry at all and knew they were loving every moment of time with Grandma!!
Enjoy the pix - since we were away, I only have one of the kids that was sent to me on my phone while we were away!!

Tiki Party!

Last day at the resort

Our view from our room - YES, this is what our patio looked at all day, every day!
Also our view!

The last evening - thank you Stephanie for all the great dresses!! This was my fav!

Day one at the resort - on our patio

Again, our view -

however if you look close, you can see Eric having a drink on the floaty thing in the middle!

The entire group - SOOOO much fun! time to plan the next trip -

anyone interested in joining us??

Oh how they grow!

We have had all sorts of bunny commotion... but those pix won't load, so that story will have to wait till another time when the computer doesn't want to hate me!

However, I realized after my last post that Kyle had a complete update, but I haven't discussed all of Riley's growth and new discoveries in the past 4 months!

She, like Kyle, has shot right up! I'm not sure how much she has grown, but everything is way too short and our rolly-polly little girl is no where to be found. Riley has discovered that she loves to bike (with training wheels still, but not for long!) roller skate, jump rope, and play tennis! She is still taking dance class and loves it but misses gymnastics more (so we'll be back at the gym come the fall). She is also reading, adding and subtracting proficiently, can tie bows, and work the seat belt (finally!). She is still super sweet and nearly too compassionate and is the mother hen to both Kyle and Lexa as always!

We had kindergarten registration recently and Riley (and me!) are soooo excited about going to school! She loves the idea that school is 5 days a week instead of her current 2!

My favorite Riley quote of late: I was taking her temp - she had a quick virus, nothing to worry about. When I looked at the thermometer, Ri said, "Does it say I'm not going anywhere?!" She cracks us up!

Riley at the strawberry patch

Riley and Kyle at 3 Lakes Park

Ready for a ride (this was back in February - look how cute they are with teeth... I'll get to that story some time!)

Monkey!
at the strawberry patch

Costumes came in today! Riley still doesn't enjoy play dress up, so as you can tell, this is very much a forced smile! We are very excited about cousin Danny getting married this summer in Vermont! however the wedding is the same day as the recital, so this may be Ri's only costume wear (which she is totally fine with!!)

Happy 3rd Birthday Monkey-man!!

The Surratt Pack is BACK! After a 4 month break we have decided to come back... I'm not sure what happened... I got busy, got bored, got sidetracked... but either way, I was tired of detailing out the craziness of our weeks. We stay busy. That is a fact and I got tired of writing the blow by blow of our weeks when really, what I should be doing is detailing out all the GREAT stuff the kids do and say - so they can come back to this some day (or I can!) and remember all the super sweet moments of their little lives. Which is why we are BACK! I went looking for a specific pix the other day on this blog and got sucked in on all the memories... the kids have grown soooo much even since we started this blog and thats what this blog is all about - watching Riley and Kyle grow and turn into amazing people!

So... Happy Third Birthday little man!! We can't belive you are THREE!!! You are amazing! Fearless (which is why you have no teeth, I'll get back to that story!), loving, sweet, compassionate, and sooo full of life!

Kyle is now in the 75th % for height (38.25 inches) and 50th % in weight (33 lbs). I was worried about this balance (Kyle falls ALOT - also back to the teeth story, which I'll get to in the coming days!) so I asked Dr. Chun about it. The Doc had kyle do a bunch of tests (jumping, balancing etc) As it turns out, Kyle is more agile and more daring than he should be for his age (and THAT was the diagnosis!) Kyle is also speaking beyond his age and his comprehension is excellent (we, the parents, are not sure we believe that one... his listening skills with us is not where we'd like it!) Not long ago, Darcy asked Kyle, "do you ever have a thought you DON'T say out loud?" Kyle paused, shook his head and replied, "nope!" and kept on running!

All in all, K is a love bug and we are not sure how we got soooo lucky!!

K looking oh so serious!

Pinata - remind in future years NOT to get a pinata!
Kyle sporting his new CARs shirt!
Kyle and the Lightning McQueen cake

The CAKE! Months back, I helped organize the Thumbs Up Ball in honor/memory of CJ Reynolds, a 4 year old little girl in our area who lost her battle with cancer. At the Ball, we had a GREAT silent auction. And as we all know, Grandma LOVES silent auctions. Grandma bid on and won a cake (an expensive cake!) from Cakes by Favi and this is what we asked her to make! It definitely surpasses the racetrack sheet cake I was going to make but thats what is coming next year:-) Thanks Grandma!!

We had a little close friends/family party for Kyle. It was hot so there was lots of water play, pizza, icecream sundaes and of course cake!

Here comes the slip-n-slide! Lexa and Aiden were CRAZY on this thing!

Look at where Ri is... beyond the slide... Look at Lexa's face... we ALL know Riley being covered in mud and wet grass is NOT going to go over well:-)

Post party play!