The Congdons: September 2011

I know it has taken me forever to update my blog-sorry. There's lots I'd like to update on, so hopefully there will be quite a few updates over the next couple of weeks.

Back in June Robbie started talking about how he wanted to go back home for a visit before the girls started school, because other wise we wouldn't see any of our family until December when we go (and we're still trying to figure that out) home for Christmas. Robbie had originally wanted to go back in the middle of August, but the week he wanted to go was also the week Gwen and Grace started school. After a little adjustment, we decided to go back for a week and a half at the end of July and be back in time for the girls to meet their teachers.

It was the first time the girls ever flew on a plane. They were so super excited. They would ask me about it every day for two weeks up until we left. They did so good on the plane and in the airports, even with delays. They are looking forward to flying again.

We spent the first part of our visit with Robbie's parents and had a great time with them. We bought the girls life jackets before we left and brought them with us on vacation. Gwen and Grace have been learning to swim very quickly with their life jackets, so we went swimming at Spring Lake. We also went shopping with Rob's mom, went to see Rob's uncle's goat, visited family and friends, went to Rutlands new children's museum, went to the Rutland farmer's market (ohhh...been looking forward to that...Pakistani/Afghani food stand--sooooooo goooood!) and just had fun playing in and around Robbie's parents house. We also went to the Montshire museum the last day we were there with his parents to celebrate Gracie's birthday. It was so much fun. I didn't get my camera out as much, so I don't really have any pictures from while we were there, but we loved spending so much time with Rob's family.

Halfway through the trip we left Rob's parents and headed to my parents new house in North Hero. Before we moved to Oklahoma, they bought a new house on Lake Champlain and sold the house that we had grown up in for the last 14 years. It was sad to leave the house and know we were never going back to it, but their new house is so lovely. My brother in law did all the remodeling work with a little help from a couple of people, including Robbie (which is when he shot a nail through two of his fingers with a nail gun).

We spent most of our time there swimming in the lake, playing outside, playing with cousins, and having fun on my parents boat. We also took the girls fishing for the first time and just had so much fun. We were sad to leave Vermont when the time came-we love it there and miss it alot. We are so thankful for the opportunity and the job that we have now though and we were happy to get back home to prepare for school. So glad to have had the chance to spend time with family and have so much fun!!

Gwen was so excited to take her first ride on papas boat. She wanted to sit up front and look over the side of the boat the whole time.

Gracie sat up in the front of the boat with Gwen and my sister Melissa. She cuddled up pretty quickly to stay warm.

It was a pretty chilly morning so we really bundled up before going for the ride. Georgia kept snuggling closer to me but really seemed to enjoy the ride.

Robbie did a lot of water skiing and wakeboarding and just had a blast!! I have really poor balance so I don't really enjoy trying to do either, but Rob loved it, and loved riding on the raft and making the girls laugh when he'd get thrown from the raft. Gwen was super excited when we told her she could go for a ride on the raft. She absolutely loved it! She just kept going and going...it took her a really long time to decide she was done, even after they went over a couple of bumpy wakes.

Grace was just as excited to ride on the raft with Rob as Gwen was, but when they started speeding up a bit and it got a bit bumpy, Grace was quick to let us know that she was done taking a turn (though she still wanted to take another ride the other times we went out). I went on the raft with Robbie as well, but only once because we went over a really large wake and the raft came up and smacked me in my mouth really hard so I wasn't too keen to get back on.

Georgia wanted to go out on the raft too, but we weren't sure if she was too young or not, so we didn't let her go that first time like we let Gwen and Grace. We figured out later that she probably could go on the raft for a really slow ride, but after that first time out to play the water was always too choppy, even for Gwen and Grace, so Georgia never went out on the raft. We made it up to her though with all the time she got to go swimming in the lake and looking for sea shells along the beach. She never seemed to mind, and hopefully she'll get a chance to ride on the raft next year.

We took the girls fishing off my parents dock either the first or second day we were there for the very first time. Gwen refused to touch the worms, so Rob and I took turns baiting her hook (well, baiting all the hooks). Gwen has been bugging us for a long time to take her fishing, so she was super excited. She was really pleased to catch a perch.

Grace was just like Gwen and refused to touch the worms to bait her hook, so again Robbie and I had to bait the hooks, but they all loved fishing. Grace caught a perch after fishing for a while and was really excited but wouldn't smile for me when I took her picture.

Georgia was the first to catch a fish that day. She caught a bass and was super happy! She had to run back to the house to tell everyone that she had caught a fish. They had so much fun that we went fishing a couple more times, and all the girls caught multiple fish each time we went fishing-it was such a hit!