Sailing Sunday

Sunday we headed out early again, well early for a weekend! Ed has been sailing once or twice a week lately at the Downtown Sailing Club in Baltimore. Its a cool place and he gets to sail right in the inner harbor! We tried to take the boys a few times this summer but the timing never seemed to work out. Well, we made it on Sunday and it was great! The weather was gorgeous. Ed isn't signed off yet to take out the J22 yet but he can take out these little boats. Only two people at a time can go so he took Max out first. It was fun just helping put the boat together and get it in the water.

This is the boat before Ed put the sails on. Max is holding the small sail but I can't remember what that one is called. I love that we are right next to the Domino Sugar plant. You can see huge ships come dock there to offload sugar cane (presumably) and Ed says you can smell the sugar sometimes. YUM!

Nolen relaxing on the dock! Isn't he cute?

Nolen helping Ed put the boat in the water. Something wasn't rigged right on the main sail and as soon as they dropped it in the water it nearly capsized. It didn't help that the keel wasn't in yet either. The sail was rigged so that it couldn't fully turn so instead of the wind pushing the sail around, it used the sail to push the boat right over!

Max and Ed on their way out into the Inner Harbor. Its beautiful with all the buildings around. You can't see from this angle but the National Aquarium is off to the left along with a big open area and some shops and restaurants. There are water taxis that run around there and one time we stayed in the tall glass windowed building to the right of the boat.

So in addition to water taxis, there are a few sight seeing boat tours and of course a Pirate cruise! It was so funny to see Ed's boat out there with the Pirate ship! You could hear the whole story that was going on too.

Nolen took a turn after Max and then I had a quick ride too. I wish I had taken a picture of the dock because it was actually a nice spot to sit and read while Ed was taking out the boys! 

After sailing we ordered some wings and went home to watch the Steelers. Unfortunately they lost. But still nice to have football on again! So that is our weekend in a nutshell! 

Ren Fest Saturday

We had another great weekend! I'll start at the beginning...

Saturday we made waffles and then headed out early to get to the music store before it turned into (a really crowded place). Max chose to play baritone this year. Fourth grade is the first year they can choose a wind instrument. Nolen hasn't played anything yet but told the music teacher he wanted to play flute. I'm not sure how he came up with that! She told him she has plenty of flute players but she needs trombones and he would be great because he's so tall and long. He was sold and we have a trombone player! When I told him the flute section is mostly girls he was relieved the didn't end up there. LOL The music store didn't have any baritones and had to order one but we did bring home a brand new trombone! I think I'm having the most fun with it so far! Nolen can make sounds but not very controlled. It will be fun (I hope) to see him learn to play!

After the music store we went to the Maryland Renaissance Festival. It runs for about 6 weeks and we've heard really good things but we've never gone. It was pretty amazing!

Max got into some trouble while we were there. But he was disciplined appropriately.

There were a lot of games! Ed is giving blow darts a try. He hit five targets and won a wooden knife.

Nolen took his turn. He hit the target several times but not hard enough to knock it over.

I think this was the highlight for Nolen. He climbed almost to the top but couldn't quite make it so he JUMPED and grabbed the stuffed dragon at the top. It was pretty cool and he was really proud of himself. Max tried too but he got frustrated and came down pretty quickly.

Nolen playing the sling shot game. Max played too but I didn't get a picture of him :(

Ed is showing off his Firefly fashion!

We all went down this slide. It was pretty cool!

And of course the boys had to play on the playground.

By the end of the day we were all dirty and tired so we headed home for some football and pizza!

A Quick Reintroduction

So I haven't posted a blog update in...a very long time. But we've been doing so many cool things lately that have longer stories than people probably want to read on Facebook so here I am! I won't try to fill in the gap of the last three years. So excuse me for jumping right in. If you must know, the boys are now 9 and 10,  in fourth and fifth grade, love video games, starting to play baritone and trombone at school, and both in GT math. They are as sweet as ever and while I wish they would play outside more and do more chores, its probably my fault for not telling them to!

Memorial Day Sing-a-Long

The boys had a Memorial Day Sing-a-Long at school today. It was very well done. The kids sang several songs,  a few grown-ups spoke about military service and what Memorial Day means and a few children spoke too. Now for the bragging...of all the kids, only about 10 spoke at each performance...10 from all of K and 2nd grade and Max was one of them. And, I think he was the best! I probably think so because I'm his mom, but still! (I don't know why the video looks so dark. It wasn't that bad on my computer but it looks worse on youtube. oh well.)

Nolen's grade also performed the sing-a-long at a separate time. He sang and looked adorabl. Again, because he is my kid.

Nolen and his "best buddy" Jonas.

Nolen's Birthday Party

For Nolen's birthday party, I convinced him to have a "Water Party". This is the poor man's "Pool Party". It was a little chilly but the kids didn't care and it turned out great! I asked the kids to bring squirt guns with them, we set up the slip n slide and I filled up a bunch of water balloons. The kids had a great time running around for about the first hour. That was easy. And I'm happy to report, there was no crying, whining or fighting in that time! I was half expecting at least one squirt gun injury or at least some hurt feelings.

We had about 8 kids from the neighborhood and 4 boys from Nolen's class.

Nolen and Luke are attacking from atop a hill. There's probably some cool military term for that but I don't know what it is.

I decided to make Nolen's cake again. For the past few years I've made his cakes and at the end of each one, I swear that I am just getting a grocery store cake next time. But I think this years might be the best yet. And it was easy! No swearing involoved! Yay! It had two layers of yellow cake with chocolate frosting between them. I found this cute idea online. Its made of blue sugar and brown sugar (the actual brown sugar you bake with, not just colored brown sugar.) and they little people are Teddy Grahams. The life preservers are Gummy Life Savers, I used some Swedish Fish and the towel is an Air-Head.
We tried to do the cake outside but it wasn't meant to be. ....I didn't want 12 wet kids running around my downstairs, or trying to sneak down into the basement. It was a very windy day, so first the candles wouldn't light, not even one. Then as I was telling Nolen that we would have to do candles later (maybe after dinner with dessert), a very large branch blew out of the tree and landed on Edward. That was when I decided to move the party inside! Of course, then I had a hissy fit trying to keep the kids from crowding Nolen and the cake. It bugs me that its hard to get good cake pictures with this table/cake arrangement because all of the kids are crowded around Nolen. Anyway...Nolen was still thrilled!

I was able to get a cute group shot of the boys. Somehow, all of the neighborhood girls managed to hide from the picture. I also noticed that the inflatable palm trees I had placed in the picture were stolen (by one of those not in the picture) while I was trying to round up the boys. But trying to get 7 boys to sit still for any length of time is an incredible feat so I just snapped it.

Because of the wind, I made an executive to open presents after all the kids left. It was WAY too windy to do it outside, and again, I didn't want the kids inside. I recently read in a magazine that its not rude to do so and its much easier than trying to keep 12 kids from jumping on top of Nolen while he's trying to enjoy opening his gifts.
He got lots of great Lego kits and some video game stuff. He was a very happy 7 year old! Max is playing with the Legos more than Nolen right now. In fact, he has already put together 3 of the sets. Ha!

By the end of the day he was pooped. He still managed to play his new Wii game and veg for a bit before heading off to another party at our neighbor's house that evening. I think he had a great day and I hope everyone who came had a good time too!