Dog Days!

With temperature has being over 100, we've spent a lot of time at the pool lately! Both kids have become great swimmers! Riley is now swimming the length of the pool and she has decided to join the swim team next year! (if next summer is this hot, Eric and I are going to be miserable at the meets!!) Kyle is officially swimming - last week he rescued a toy dinosaur, tread water to give the toy to a friend, and then swam back to the wall. The first time he lifted his head for a breath and swam a substantial distance, he exclaimed, "Am I FIVE now??!!" As it turns out, only 5 year olds can swim on their own!

We had a great visit with the Grinnells last week as well - however I remembered to bring my camera down stairs but forgot to take an pix! Drew and Kyle got along great and Sam is such a cutie!!

The kids have loved growing our 1st garden ever and can get enough of our fresh cucumbers!! (they still won't eat the squash or tomatoes but we have hope!) The corn turned our pretty good too and are cantaloupe are coming along nicely!

Riley and Kyle also enjoyed a great week of Backyard Bible Camp (Kids Give Back)! I'm going to attempt to upload a video:-) We have tons of beach pix to come soon!!

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??