"pittsburgh day"

i have absolutely been loving my time off of work, and of course, am not looking forward to going back monday evening, but whatever, one has to work, right? right now we are at home taking a break from camping in the rain. what do you do during the day when it is pouring down rain? you can't stay in the tent, can you? so we opted for coming home, showering, and i had to check my e-mail, facebook, and update the blog.

monday ben and i had a "pittsburgh day" with the boys. this consisted of getting jimmy john's for lunch and having a picnic at the point. we dipped our feet in the fountain, walked by the river, and then took the duquesne incline to mt. washington to look at the stunning views of our city. ben keeps trying to convince me to move away, but i LOVE this city. here are some of my favorite pictures of the day (i know, i am a picture fiend) and then a slide show.



the city i love



benji and port



cute brothers



me and da boys

irwin family reunion

on thursday, we headed to portsmouth, ohio to shawnee national park for the irwin family reunion. the reunion was from thursday until sunday. we stayed at the shawnee resort and lodge and had much fun with our family. some of the highlights included: swimming at the pool, late night singalongs, pina coladas (non-alcoholic, of course), "hiking" with the boys, the awesome dinner and slide show, and huge beer bottle in the woods. here are a few of my favorite pics, and one of my slide shows... special thanks to gma and gma for our room and gma and gpa kelly for the yummy food!



getting rowdy when gma got the bar to re-open



off the diving board



touch my toes



me and gryff



up to mischief

holiday!

celebrate! christabel, our nanny/babysitter/au pair is from england and has the coolest british accent. when i was serving in young women's, i would always make her read the longest quotes! silly, i know. well, we were chatting at church and she said, "you're going on holiday next week, right?" love it- holiday, sounds so much more festive than vacation.

we are heading to shawnee national park in ohio for a family reunion from thur-sun. then monday and tuesday is family time at home and going to kennywood. then next wed-sun we are heading down to ohio pyle for some camping with friends and family. i have 11days off of work! and so does ben! woo-hoo! can you tell i am happy? happy summer!

happy birthday!!!

ben's birthday was 7/16. we had a wonderful day- full of food and fun, really. we started the am by going to the ymca to work out. then we headed out to homestead for the new seafood buffet, hokkaidos. it is more of a "chinese" buffet, similar to the one out in cranberry. it was surprisingly not so bad... i am not a fan of buffets. after lunch, we headed home for nap time and i stayed home with port, while ben took the older boys to the pool. following the pool, we hit up red robin for dinner. then off to bed went the boys, beth beth came over, and ben and i met colin and rachel to go see harry potter, which completely ROCKED!!! i am jealous of ben's birthdays- it's a day just to himself. i share mine with jesus, which really doesn't seem fair.

anyway, enough about me, more about ben. he's 28 now, and as awesome and sexy as ever. some things i love about him:

he is my best friend
he is so darn thoughtful
he lets me nap when porter sleeps
he is so good to the boys
he mellows me out
he has a wonderful sense of humor
he is 100% devoted to me and our kids
he loves jesus
he works hard
he is starting his m.ed in the fall at carlow, way to go!
he cooks, well!
he is handy around the house, and motivated!
he is a talented musician
he is an amazing teacher
he rocks my world
he buys me godiva truffles, a lot!
he lets me embarrass him by writing these blog posts

love you, benji!

addendum: pictures from ben's b-day dinner with the kellers

songs

the boys love to write their own songs. some of them are cute, some of them are funny, some of them are highly inappropriate. i think they get that from their dad. the boys have there own "penis song" which they sing frequently in the bath and even do a little dance. another song they sing is basicallly just the refrain "poopin' in the water, poopin' in the water." my boys are weird, i know it. but yesterday at work, i was singing this song to myself as i walked to the bathroom. it seemed to be good timing, but then today jonas was singing this at the grocery store... he was thrilled when i told him i was singing it to myself yesterday.

giggles

i love this video of gryffie making portie giggle. port is pretty reserved when it comes to his giggles. he is very smiley, but rarely laughs out loud. and really, only jonas and gryffin have the ability to get him laughing.

pictures

please check out the updated posts for father's day and the 4th. i added some pictures.

two random thoughts

mallo cups and the 13th floor

i love mallo cups and am eating some now as part of my lunch. i love reese's peanut butter cups, too, but one thing i have realized, pb cups are now much smaller in size than they used to be. mallo cups aren't! they are still as big as normal. and for that reason, mallo cups, i love you! nice!

i have been having some training today and yesterday at a different building than i usually work. the training is on the 17th floor. i have noticed in the elevator that there is no "13th" floor listed, but... there still is a 13th floor, right? it is just called the "14th" floor. superstitions get the best of people. i know at western psych there were 15 floors, and the 13th floor was just the 13th floor. it was also the floor where all the borderlines went... anyway, why not have 13th floors if hospitals continue to have rooms such as 666. just a thought.

happy 4th of july

a couple days late! yet another weekend of fun! friday was a big day! especially for jomi. we finally bought him shoes with ties and he learned to tie his shoes. he also road a bike without training wheels! hooray! friday night, we had a bbq at church with friends. betsy ross made a surprise visit to the kids and educated them on the importance of celebrating the 4th of july.

saturday we went to colin's and had a bbq- much fun, especially the fireworks! i'm actually quite surprised no one got hurt, specifically colin as ben wailed numerous amounts of fireworks at his feet. saturday night we went to oakmont to see the fireworks. usually we get the boys home to bed, but we decided to go. we didn't want to head downtown, and i think oakmont was perfect for us- plus there was NO traffic on the way home. even port stayed awake.

sunday, church, of course. then a brunch at gma and gpa kelly's for gpa's b-day celebration! happy birthday, grandpa! last night was another bbq, at our house, with friends and family, and more fireworks!

happy 4th of july! hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

my favs

here are a couple recent pics of the boys that i love...