Close to home, Close to fun!

Taking a short break from what I have dubbed "Summer Travel Fest 2009" we have enjoyed the last two weekends at home, with lots of fun and festive things to do.

July 4th weekend kicked off with RNO, otherwise known as the "Red Necked Olympics" hosted by one of my friends from the office. Dressing to impress Lilah watched her parents try to master such games as the "Tire Toss" and "Blow that Soda Can!". Although we left shortly before the" Wife Carry" a fantastic time was had by all and brought back memories of the annual vacuum throwing contest of summers past.

Then on the actual 4th, we headed over to the Takoma Park parade with Gayle, Erik and Jordan (thankful as always that they invite us to cool stuff or we would never know to go!). We got there early enough to get a great seat, and with only a small CVS run for Lilah's first Hello Kitty band aid, we watched the parade amazed at all that Takoma Park has to offer (a small sampling of that in the photo to the left).

Back home for a quick rest, we ventured over the bridge and into Virginia to watch the fireworks from an undisclosed location. Luckily this undisclosed location was on the 16th floor of an enclosed building - close enough to see the fireworks but far enough away no kids were scared by the noise. Oh yea and the undisclosed location also happened to include Lilah beau Alexander - who knew?!


The week itself was also eventful as Jason and I celebrated our 7th Anniversary and Lilah was treated to serenade of Sesame Streets "Put Down the Duckie" as performed by Darryl.
Then, always amazing us with new things she does, Lilah performed her famous "I don't want to take a nap" act on Friday - finished the evening by (on her own!) going over to the couch, getting herself a pillow, putting it on the dining room floor and going to bed for the night about an hour and a half before her normal bedtime.

In case you were wondering she has also mastered the art of the phrases "NO MOMMY," "NO DADDY," and "NO DIAPER CHANGE!". Speaking of which a quick milestone of Lilah choosing her own potty also occurred this week. Her vocabulary has grown so much in the past few weeks, that we can now understand about 75% of what she says - it's fantastic.

This past Saturday was spent mostly outside, working around the house and having fun. It would be remiss not to mention however the Cheeburger, Cheeburger-off that occurred Saturday night where all the Boig's were in attendance. With video to come later, the basic premise was that Santiago would order and pay for a burger (ordering anything on it he would like) and Darryl would eat it. With a small audience of well-wishers Lilah took the opportunity to show her dislike of shoes running around the back room they hid us in only in socks. (Thank you Stephanie for getting her shoes back on!). Did I mention she also takes her shoes off in the car, in the house basically anyplace except when we try to get her to take a bath - then she wants to keep everything on.

The last stop on our weekends adventure was a paaaaarty at our place on Sunday in honor of the Dailey's and there upcoming new addition of a baby girl. After a fun and filling time (YUM Pavlova) Lilah took a late nap and Jason and I sat on our clean deck, on a clear and beautiful day, eating Thai and enjoying ourselves.

With more fun in the sun (and on the beach) ahead of us this summer keep following along as more exciting adventures (and new words/phrases) are bound to come.

NJ and the Beach - and not even at the same time!

As the Boig family continues with our "traveling" summer we have been a bit too busy to review and cut the video from Ireland - so Part Duex will have to wait a bit as we enjoy non virtual summer experiences.

Speaking of! The last two weekend have been fun travel ones with the "girls" (that would be Lilah and me) visiting my mom in NJ last weekend. We headed up after music class with Lilah being the perfect traveler and sleeping till she was about 20 minutes from my mom - waking up in enough time not to be cranky when we got there! After spending time running around the mall, running around the backyard (in puddles) and running around the house she finally crashed sleeping about half the way back as well. Fun and good travels were had by all!

Then this past weekend, the Boigs, Reiches, Eagle/Diamonds and my sis headed out to Assateague Island for two nights of fun in the sun (and sleeping on the ground). Lilah loved the tent which she calls her "little house" and loved peeking out of it and putting her stuffed animal to bed.

She also had a great time at the beach! And don't worry - we made sure she was fed and hydrated including the now infamous "Banana, + Sand eating scandal of 2009"

After a long morning at the beach on Saturday we headed back to our campsite to find the Reich's had arrived.
We attempted to wash the sand off Lilah in the smallest baby pool ever - but she was no cooperating and so Alexander had to show her how it was done. (for the record this pool now lives with Alexander's parents).

After every had a quick rinse off Lilah got to experience her first canoe ride! She was wondering and even wore her Spongebob Squarepants life preserver with pride. OK , so maybe we WERE lapped a few times by Beth, Darryl, Santiago AND Mookie - but hey they had an extra set of four paws in their canoe. Unfortunately with all those hands and paws....there were no cameras - maybe next time.

Then back to the campsite for some much needed rest and food. Lilah spend some time showing her animals around the camp site in her new and favorite past time of walking her wagon around and around and well around.

There might also been some photos taken of children/dogs holding EMPTY! bottles of beer or Mike's Hard Lemonade, but due to the fear of Uncle Steven calling DYFUS on all of us - those have been shredded (or only shared on a "need to know" basis). So you get this photo of a passed out Mookie instead - super cute.

Heading back to the beach the next morning after a tasty, although sandy, breakfast Alexander tried out his new "floating on air" trick to avoid any possible contact with the water. Then off to Big Al's Pit Beer (and turkey) BBQ and home to hot bath and shower and fresh raspberries off our bushes that seemed to have fruit overnight. Good thing Lilah loves raspberries!

Overall a great to weekend to mark almost the middle of summer. Up next...RNO (you will have to wait till the next posting to deceiver that!), 4th of July festivities, Bugs Bunny under the stars and more.

Get out, enjoy the weather, but always remember to wear some bugspray!

Ireland! Part 1 - The Photos

Welcome back to us!

OK so we actually got back LAST week, but it took some time to pull together our photos, get over jetlag and generally get ourselves together enough to put two sentences together and update the blog.

I split the Ireland adventures into two postings...this one for photos and the next will be video.

To recap, Ireland was amazing and Lilah was even more amazing with her laid back travel attitude and generally flexibility.

We (Mommy, Daddy, Lilah, Uncle Steven, Aunt Sarah, Bubbe and Will) left Newark, NJ May 30th on a 7pm flight arriving in Dublin at 6am local time (1am DC time). After the three hour drive to NJ and the six hour flight (of which she slept three hours) Lilah was ready for a nap in the car which she got as we tried to navigate our way out of Dublin, driving on the wrong side of the road and learning what a "roundabout" really meant.

Sleeping through our first stop in Glendalough, Lilah woke up in time for lunch getting her first taste of what would be a week of "chips" (fries). After lunch we headed to Kilenny where we would be spending our first night. We visited the Kilenny Castle where the above photo of Jason and Lilah was taken - can you tell we hadn't slept in 36 hours by this point! Lilah had a fantastic time running around the grounds of the castle, then to dinner and BED for everyone. The first photo is Lilah, rested the next morning after over 12 hours of sleep. The one to the left is right before heading to bed - can you tell what a trooper she was! (also can you tell how far north Ireland it that it stays light there till about 11pm......)

After some good sleep we all headed off to Waterford where Lilah showed off her moose to the Waterford bear as well as more "chips" for lunch. We then drove to Cobh (pronounced Cove). While the rest of us were amazed at the beautiful countryside, Lilah settled into what would be her MO for the trip - sleeping while we drive and being in a good mood as we explored.

And in case you are thinking at this point "Wow they threw her in the car and dragged her everywhere - poor kid." do not fret - Lilah got plenty of exercise time with her Aunt and Uncle throughout the trip. Running, kicking, throwing and sometimes even climbing on hundred year old rocks as you will see in a photo below.

Before leaving Cobh we checked out the last place the Titanic left before it sunk and got our first "Boig Family Photo" of the trip. You might also be wondering how come you don't see any rain - it is Ireland after all. Thankfully we have been told we had the best seven (out of eight) days Ireland has seen in 10 years.

Day three brought us right outside of Cobh to Cork and one of the major highlights of the trip - Fota Wildlife Park.

You may notice that these animals do not seem to be in cages - that would be because they were not. Only the ones that might eat us fully in one swoop were restricted with many of the rest free to roam about.


You can imagine all of our delight with this experience - Lilah taking it all in and loving every minute of it. She surprised all of us when - without prompting she yelled "Zebra" at the top of her voice point to EXACTLY where the zebra was. Amazing the things she remembers.























After Fota we headed to lunch and then over to the Jameson Experience which, after realizing we had to wait an hour for a tour, decided to purchase our goods and ditch the rest of the "Experience".

Which gave us enough time to head to Blarney Castle where Lilah got some good shut eye with Bubbe and the rest of us climbed up and up and up to kiss the Blarney Stone. (Full disclosure - kissing was only done by Jason, Aunt Sarah and Uncle Steven).







We also played a game of "Where's Waldo" with each of us popping out different widows in the castle to see how high we could go with Lilah still seeing us.

Finally heading back to our hotel on Day 3 (wow that was all one day!) Lilah got her first Irish bath. You would never know from this photo how much she hates baths - both Irish and American.

Day 4 was our scenic day of exploring starting at Drombeg Stone Circle where Lilah made friends with the rocks, while we debated if you could actually tell the time by the way the stones were set.

Giving new meaning to the phrase "rock hugger."

Heading out from Drombeg we hit highlight two of the trip - the Ring of Kerry. The most beautiful place I have seen in my life, Lilah woke up from her mid day nap long enough to enjoy the amazing sites...take the second Boig Family Photo...go to the beach...and then fell asleep again.


At least she knows her priorities!

Bunking down in Killarney that night, Lilah proved that naps do work as she climbed up and down and up and down the stairs of the hotel, while the rest of us were just looking for our rooms.

On Day 5 we started heading north on the west side of Ireland, stopping at the Cliffs of Moher on our way to Ashford Castle.

Lilah once again reminded us to save our energy for what lie ahead.

Being every bit as stunning as you could imagine (or view if you click on the link to the web site), Lilah got to be a true princess wander the Castle grounds, enjoying exploring the landscaping and sitting in the "big girl chairs" they had spread all around.







We spent Day 6 at the Castle taking in every activity and seeing everything that was available to us, but then sadly as it got close to dinner time we started our trek off the coasts of this amazing country and inland in the direction of Dublin.

Night 6 and early Day 7 spend in Athlone for sleeping and eating (yummy Italian) we headed out early for our last full day in Dublin. Unfortunately our last day brought rain, which did not deter us from visiting Guinness and Trinity College, but did hamper the photo taking for that day.

Getting to bed early to head out early, we left Ireland on Day 8 leaving behind fantastic people and stunning landscape but bringing home some great memories. As good as any toddler could be, Lilah held out well during the seven hour plane ride home playing and walking in between her parents - who only wished maybe she would get a tiny bit tired for a nap.

Getting home at 1pm local time (6pm Ireland time) the Boigs wished goodbye to the rest of the family and headed back to Maryland around 4pm. Lilah gave one big wave and then fell asleep at 4:02pm sleeping straight through until 4:02 am (she did think it was 9am so you can't blame her too much).

Speaking of sleeping I am headed off to do some of that right now. Videos and Part II to come later this week as well as an update on all the words Lilah can say and all the sassiness she can give!

Trains, Planes and Automobiles

It's summer! (Technically spring, but the summer season has started.) With summer always comes lots of travel and outdoor excitement for our family. We take advantage of every adventure we can and every sunny (not too humid) day that we get.

The past two weeks have been an excellent example of this. Two weekends ago we took a short hop on Southwest (my FAVORITE airline - which says a lot since I hate to fly) to Connecticut for Lilah's Aunt Sarah's graduation. Yea Sarah!!

Lilah did amazing on the plane, keeping her parents busy while amusing everyone sitting behind us. While in CT, we visited one of my co-workers places, enjoying time with his kids and giving Lilah lots of experience playing with "new toys". You can see she learned how much fun dressing up can be.



She also mugged it up for the camera as usual.

The first photo is from the Sunday morning after a tasty but late night out at dinner. The second one from part way through the graduation when Lilah showed her New Jersey style eating her way through a not-so-tasty bagel at the graduation.

Getting back into town, this last week was lots of fun. My Aunt Karen and Uncle Fred were kind enough to come in and watch Lilah while our nanny was on vacation. Lilah got lots of great outdoor time and Jason and I got to work at home - getting more work done then a day at the office.

Celebrating the amazing weather this holiday weekend, we did a lot of gardening and got outside as much as we could. These are of Lilah enjoying the local park by our house. She is a bit of a daredevil - but at least learning to count 1, 2, 3 before taking off down the slide!

Yesterday we all took off for the zoo, meeting up with our favorite kid family's. We also attempted to do the impossible task of getting all three kids (Lilah, Alexander, and Jordan) to look forward and smile together. But this photo is pretty cute anyway!




Although not as cute as these two!

In case you ever wondered what Lilah's favorite animal was, this video should help you!

(This smile scares me as a bit devilish....maybe I don't want them hanging out so much as they get older!)






Reminder that we are off to Ireland this coming weekend, so get ready for photos and video fun the Irish way once we get back!

More video!

Yes I know I have lots of photos to load, stories to tell and well planes to fly on (in the next four weeks) but video is sometimes more fun...so...

We need to teach Lilah the difference between a camera and a camcorder!

Lilah who? Lilah Boig!

Gee I wonder if she likes Mickey Mouse?

If you have never seen an episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse welcome to Lilah's favorite part.

Also..I really am working on new blog format and location through WordPress but need to find sometime! Coming soon..ish.

Now the video will never stop coming!

After 18 months of debating, Jason and I finally admitted that the 20 second video's our camera could take just weren't holding their own with our amazing Miss Lilah. So today we purchased the Flip Ulta HD. Blogger compresses the video so it doesn't look so HD here (if you Facebook you can see the HD quality on what I posted there).

Anyway here comes the video...

This one is just plain silly, but it made us laugh and we hope it will do the same for you. I just titled it "Lilah and the Banana" (or as she calls it "NANNA".

OK this one is just as silly. Lilah has a case of the giggles! (It might be because her mom - that's me! is going "Blahlalalalalalalala" with her tongue. You will see Lilah try to recreate that part way through the video).

In this one Lilah shows her smarts as she recites HER version of the ABCs.

That's all for tonight folks, but I am sure quite a bit more will be coming as well as photos of Lilah roasting her first marshmallow.

Testing blog uploads from my amazing IPhone