Vacations!

We went to Philly a few weeks ago and hung out with Scott's family. When we got back it was all madness starting with getting back into church callings, Kyle's 18th birthday, Celebrating the 4th and fighting with the water company. It's been a week since we've been back and it finally feels like we can stop and take a breath. Anyway, here are a few fun pictures of our trip followed by their fun explanations.
This is a picture of Scott and the kids sitting in the airport. What happened is that our flight got majorly delayed. We had a connecting flight in Detroit which we had to wave bye bye to because of the delay. Thanks Northwest. We still hate you. I'd just like to say that they treated us like crap on the flight back as well. The flight was delayed yet again, and the stewardesses were giving Lisa dirty looks while she walked her son up and down the isles to keep him from crying. Little witches should all be burned at the stake. (As you can tell we're still not over it.)

The airline promised to pay for us to stay overnight in a hotel there and catch a flight the following day as we boarded 2 hours later. The reason for the delay? They claimed that those little emergency pamphlets in the front pocket were the wrong kind and they had to replace them. As we boarded the plane and they were handing them out, they suddenly realized that there weren't enough. They kicked us off the plane and told us we wouldn't be leaving for another 4 hours. When they made the announcement on the plane, Lisa got angry and started booing which made the stewardesses give her dirty looks, but she didn't care, which happens when you're stuck at the airport with two small children. Poor Crystal started crying because she didn't want to get off the plane. She couldn't understand why the staff couldn't just fly the plane.
At the desk they kept saying that there was nothing they could do and we'd just have to wait. One guy offered to take the pamphlets over to kinkos and make copies for them. Another lady burst into tears about not getting to say goodbye to a loved one. Again, Thanks Northwest.
After waiting around for another hour we had an idea and we went back out to the check in area through the gates had another flight scheduled for the next morning...it was already 8 hours later and our kids were angry. Seth's face said it all that day:

So we made it home at 11:30 at night tired and hungry and got up at seven in the morning to try again. This time we made it on the plane. Crystal was very happy to finally be in the air.

We were excited to finally be in Scott's hometown. We got there and within hours Scott started helping the family move furniture around to help clean the house. Since most of the Itri boys were around, this was a good time for their man power to be put to good use. Unfortunately during the hoopla of sweaty faces Scott pulled a back muscle and had to lie down. This was a little sad because with his injury our activities were going to be limited, but it turned out not to matter anyway because it was raining all week.
Anyway for that first week, all of us just hung out at the house, watched home videos, told stories, and watched movies.

Seth got acquainted with his cousin Regan

Crystal loved entertaining the babies


Margie aka "Grandma Itri" literally had her hands full helping with all the babies in the house


It was also fun to see Rob and Stephanie being first time parents with their adorable little Regan


It was also fun to see the kids experience some new firsts. While going out to eat Cheeseteaks at a wonderful place called La Forno's, The owner insisted that Seth have a sucker. He was completely involved in it for the whole drive back to the house.



Crystal also experienced her first tractor ride, which she enjoyed with Daddy.


Another highlight for the kiddies was the dog, Kramer. He and Crystal babysat each other a lot of the time.


The kids and Kramer however, kept making each other way too hyper, so we had to seperate them a lot of the time.



After a week at the Itri house, we took off to Long Beach Island. It's called long beach island because it's basically one long skinny island with beach on both sides and a main road in the middle. It's a fun little beach town/island.


Ahhh, we just love beach towns. We also love the beach. We're big time beach people.







Most of the family and several friends were out at the beach house with us. We were cramming a ton of people in that house. Here are Jason, Crystal and Megan sitting on a blowup bed that was in the middle of the living room. We were all crawling all over each other a lot of the time.

Here's Rob and Nick (Scott's bro and dad)

Gotta love J Dee and Brian taking a nap in the afternoon.

We sat around a chilled together a lot, talking, and playing games.

Here's Stephanie entertaining the kids

And here are Rob and Scott being good daddies:

We also all went bowling together. Lisa Hates bowling but she took pictures of everyone else having fun to entertain herself:




Another highlight: The East Coast is full of beautiful and wonderful food and treats, aside from Cheesesteaks (that you CAN'T copy on the West Coast) Hoagies, perfect pizza, Bagels and soft pretzels, there is also Ritas Water Ice...Water ice is stronger consistancy than a slushy, but softer than a snowcone...it's...water ice. It's marvelous.

Here are Rob, Stephanie, Dan and Kelsey enjoying their water ice

On the way, I took a picture of this cafe which was completely flooded. Being an island there was some flooding at some of the local places closer to the beach.

Since we spent most of the time either on the beach or hanging out at the beach house, here are some more beach pics that we took:

Here is little Regan looking patriotic in his little American flag towel.


Crystal, Nick, Margie, Brian and Jess holding Regan below:


Brian was digging for dollars the whole time...he "happened" to come across 15 dollars during the week. What a lucky guy!


Here are Kelsey and Dan hitting the waves in the ocean


What kind of vacation would it be if we didn't throw in a few family pics?
Here we are on the sand...


And here we are moments later to give you the ocean view:















With around 20 people all crammed in the same house, everyone had a turn being in charge of dinner every night. Here are some of the many meals we had together.





During the nights we played games and then when everyone else would go to bed the men would stay up and play Rook...



Of course you can't spend every single moment at the beach house. We also went miniature golfing, which is a favorite to do every year.
Here's Lisa concentrating...


stopping to strike a pose...



The boys caught a bunch of Hermit crabs while we were there...Crystal brought a few back to the beach house.



So the beach was awesome. After all the fun in the sun we went back to Scott's parents house at the end of the week. Scott caught up with a bunch of his high school buddies, and Lisa was happy to meet them for the first time.

Here are Chris, Dan, Carter and Scott having a good time






Group pics...



Our last day there was a Sunday, so we all took some family/Sunday pics in our nice clothes before church and before we had to fly back after church...


Scott and the babies


Crystal and her dress


Nick, Rob, and Regan


Dan and Brian; Scott and Seth; Nick, Rob and Regan


Kelsey and Dan


Kelsey Dan and Brian; Stephanie Rob and Regan; Margie and Nick; and us.


So it was a great vacation, and we had a blast. Now that it's taken a month to make this post we can finally publish it!! We hope all our famiy, friends and loved ones are doing well.

Video of Seth's birthday

This is something I meant to add to the previous post. (Because I know you were just dying for more lol). Here we are singing to the little guy.

Seths first birthday!!

We seriously can't believe that Seth is already a year old. It doesn't feel like it. Seems like time goes by much faster with the second than the first. What fun it is having both a little girl and a little boy in the home!
We love our little Man!
Seth never stops smiling. Yes, he's a baby and babies throw their occasional fits, but making him smile is so easy. He has such a strong sense of humor and his laughter is constantly filling up the house.
He gets along great with Crystal. In a way it's easier for Lisa to handle two more than one because they occupy each other so often playing games on the floor, making each other laugh, and of course Crystal teaching him how to get into trouble. There's much more love and much less competition than we expected between the two of them in our home.
Seth loves to communicate. He still only says "dada" and only says "mama" when he's crying (typical that he only wants mom when he's in a jam). He understands most of what we tell him though, and responds accordingly. He loves to click his tongue, roll in circles on the floor, push any button on any device within the vicinity, crawl up the stairs, and crawl in the bathroom when nobody's looking...much to mommies dismay.
He's a pro crawler. He can crawl faster than Crystal can walk. He uses this skill whenever he sees an opportunity to go somewhere that he knows mommy and daddy don't want him to go. He gives us great exercise chasing him up stairs, down hallways, out doors, etc. With Seth, if you look away for 3 seconds, he takes off like a bullet exactly where you don't want him to go. He's a smart little monkey.
We love him so much, and we can't imagine our home without him.
Here are some pictures we took for his birthday:













There's nothing more wonderful than enjoying your kids! Happy birthday baby boy!