The Beach!

We went to Long Beach Island for the day on Saturday. Alyssa's friend Holly, my mom, Jamie, Josslyn and Jonathan joined us. We had a great time and it was a beautiful day!!

This was how our day began at 6:15 am:

It took us almost an hour to get onto the island from the Garden State parkway (it should have taken about 15 minutes)...there were lots of people that felt the need to hang out at the beach on Saturday, I guess...LOL:

This is the old shack that has been here since the 1920's. As you can see it's quite deteriorated:

Water was rough; they only let people out knee deep:

It was a beautiful day:

Joss's first trip down to the water:

Think I'll just sit on Nani's lap:

Now, Jonathan on the other hand, loved the water:

She finally got brave enough to sit in the sand and play with the sand toys:

Love those shades:

Flag is usually green, today it meant rough water:

Taking a break:

Still playin':

Having a blast:

Maybe I'll try this water thing again:

It was time to leave. I tried to get a nice family shot (minus daddy) for Jamie...Joss was about 1/2 hr beyond nap time and Jonathan wouldn't look at me for a pic...oh well:

At our favorite seafood restaurant, Ship Bottom Shellfish:

At the lighthouse:

Old Barney:

About 216 steps too many for me :) :

<3:

Alyssa with Nani:

Three generations:

That's Holly and Alyssa in the foreground:

We were a little too early for the sunset, but did manage to catch this:

See anyone you know!?!?

A special anklet made by the professional hemp-er....Miss Erika Klemp-er :)

The New Temporary Abode

Alyssa got the keys to her new temporary 4 month living quarters on Friday afternoon. She and Erika went up to State College Thursday evening through Saturday evening to pack, unpack, spend money, buy beads (little joke among friends...LOL!). Kurt and I went up for the day on Friday to help move everything. She'll only be here until winter break, then will be relocating to the Pittsburgh area where she will be doing her student teaching in the spring.

This is a three story townhouse; there will be four girls living in the house at all times. Two of them will be there the entire year. Alyssa and her friend Kristen (you may remember her as K-Ten from past posts) will be there this fall; when they leave two other girls will be moving in for the spring semester who are studying abroad their fall semester. Confused yet!?!?

The pic above is actually two townhomes....there's is the door to the right. Two of the bedrooms are on the second floor and the other two are in the basement. If you look at the picture above, you can see two basement windows on the right, behind the bushes. That is where Alyssa and Kristen will be residing. There are basically two rooms with a bathroom in the one and a third very small room with a washer/dryer in it. They had two choices as far as how they would arrange things. They could have turned the front room into a living room and the back room into a bedroom for both of them.....OR.....they could each have one of the rooms to themselves. Kristen kind of liked the idea that they'd have their own rooms....so Kristen took the front room and Alyssa has the back room (which has the walk in closet and bathroom).

Alyssa's room with bathroom and built in shelves:

Other view of her room with the walk in closet:

Tiny laundry area:

View of the front room, with steps coming down to the basement:

Opposite view of front room, little hallway to left goes back to Alyssa's room:

Partay!

We had a combined graduation party for Adam and welcome to the family party for Kievah yesterday. Chris and Fiona were gracious enough to host the gathering at their house, while we brought the party goods/food/drinks/cake. It was a lovely afternoon. I took lots of pics and it's too much work to organize them in any sort of order, so what you see is what you get :)

Kievah in one of her new outfits (you may see her in multiple outfits in these pictures...Fiona kept putting the new ones on her...it was like a little fashion show...LOL!!)

Kieran taking a pic of me taking a pic of him :)

Just some of the goodies! Fiona cut up some fruit she got from Wegman's...strawberries, honeydew, pineapple, cherries...it was delish!

Adam's balloons

Kievah's balloons

(I had a method in my madness with my color scheme....blue and white for Adam for Penn State, black and orange for Adam for Northampton, and pink for Kievah!)

Pam holding Kievah as she opens some of her gifts. That's Mulan!

Nani and Nancy

(Nancy is Mom's high school friend from NYC who was visiting mom for the weekend)

Martha and Fernando

(aliases, but I can't tell you their real names, or I'd have to kill you...LOL!!)

Jim and Donnalee

(Donnalee is Kurt's sister...and no, Jim was not singing...hee, hee!)

Oh, and BTW, it was Donnalee's birthday!

Happy Birthday!!

Grandma with Halle

(What a lovely picture!)

Riley!

Kim and Alyssa with the girls :)

Brothers

(Kurt, Chris and Fernando)

Nancy used to teach in Chinatown, she amassed quite a collection of books over the years with Chinese characters/themes. She decided to share some of them with Chris and Fiona for Kievah :)

See how Kievah is laughing? She still doesn't understand most English, but ever since she arrived, every time someone yells at Colm, she breaks out in laughter! We couldn't get her to smile, so someone yelled out at Colm...she proceeded to start giggling :)

You try to take a nice picture and someone always ruins it :)

Adam opening his gift from Pam and Bethanie

Still working on the gift from Pam and Bethanie

Colm and Adam having a little pillow fight!

Yummy cake from Wegman's

It was their day!

So thirsty!

Kievah loves spicy food!! These are hot wings from Pizza Hut. Colm doesn't care for spicy so much, but if his sister is eating it, he wants it too :)