Up in the Air

One of Tori's favorite things for Tori and her daddy to do is: Fly...yes he throws her up, up, up in the air...and she LOVES it! 

Marbles Children's Museum with the Costa Family

Today we spent the day at the Marbles Children's Museum in Raleigh.  Our extended family from Vietnam came to Virginia and made the day trip to meet us in Raleigh.  Tori and Lily have been talking about each other since our New York City trip.  They had a blast together.  They kept calling each other cousin Lily and cousin Tori. 

Homecoming for Nick...Senior Year at Jack Britt High School

 Nick and his girlfriend Ann Marie

I Just Love It When Ashley Comes Home to Visit

Last week, Ashley came home from college for a visit.  We did some shopping, some sewing, and ironically, we both got glasses.  She got them for the first time and I progressed to multiple issues with my eyes...they are no longer cougar vision. 

We also went to the Blue Jean Ball.  Tori was dancing up a storm on the dance floor.  They also had a photo both.  This was very cool...we got to take four photos that come out on a card to keep.  So, we did serious and some silly. 

It was a fun night, I came home with two chairs from the auction.  One adorable flip flop chair for Tori's room and the other a hallway accent. 

Big Accomplishment: Tori Loves the Ocean Now

This summer Tori had a big accomplishment, she became comfortable in the ocean.  For the past two years, Tori has not liked the ocean...she was actually fearful of it and she didn't want to go in it or for us to go in it.   This summer, I asked her to try to just tip her toe in the ocean.  She did, then I asked her if she wanted to jump in the low water near the beach...just like jumping in a puddle and she did.  She then jumped more and more and eventually was lying in the water.  A small wave even crashed upon her and she didn't panic, she laughed.  The rest of the day, she hardly wanted to leave the ocean, so we made sure to go back the next day for more ocean fun.  Here are a few of the pictures of that weekend:

 

Just Playing In The Rain

Tori had fun just playing in the rain...

New York City and a visit with the Costa's

We spent Labor Day weekend in NYC. We flew in on Saturday morning and spent the afternoon shopping at Macy's. I sure wish we had a big Macy's in Fayetteville! We had a nice Italian dinner and walked around Time Square. Mike insisted we take another photo of Tori in Time Square with her I love NY t shirt on.


On Sunday, Mike took a lesson at the trapeze school where he did three trips and flips on the trapeze and decided it was a sport for the young body. The spinning did him in though. He can now check it off his bucket list though. We then trolled around the Brazil festival on the Avenues of the Americas. There were lots of booths with goods to buy and foods to taste.


For lunch, we met the Costa family, our extended family from Vietnam. Lily and Tori spent 10 months together in Thai Nguyen, Vietnam. We waited together to bring home our girls. We became a family together! We are now and extended family. We had lunch and then took the girls to the Central Park Zoo and petting zoo. Then we made the last ride of the night on the Central Park Carousel before we had dinner at a local pub. The girls really enjoyed being together. In fact, Lily was Tori's favorite part of our trip and she talked about her for days since came home.


On Monday, we took Tori to FAO Schwartz to make a Muppet Puppet. She picked out a princess dress for her, which was not a surprise since she has been in princess mode for a while now. She also loved the dress up area of the store and the floor piano used in the movie Big. We walked around the city until it was time to head back to the airport for our journey home. It was a whirlwind trip, but well worth the journey.