Patience

Thanks for being patient with me during my blogging absence. I hope you followed my Twitter feed on the right hand column of the blog for up-to-date photos and comments. We have had a fun and busy last few weeks! On July 14th Nana and G-man arrived in Atlanta for a visit on their way back home from a summer in Scotland. Mom, Madeline, and Mason joined Nana and G-man on their trip back home and stayed for a visit for almost 2 weeks! Dad joined us at the end of the visit and the four of us headed back home. A few days later Dad and Mom escaped for a weekend away in Philly for a very fun wedding! Thanks to Nanny Mal (and Aunt Nette and Uncle J and our neighbor) for watching the kids! So...how to get you up to date...let's start with a partial montage of photos from our stay with Nana and G-man (some of which you may have already seen on Twitter):

Madeline had her hair done including ribbon!

Madeline and Nana braved the extreme heat to ride the bus!

It's so cute how simple things like riding the bus are so much fun for Madeline!

To beat the heat and find a good outlet for Madeline's 3-year-old energy we went to the country club pool pretty much every other day. It hasn't changed much (at all) since Mom worked there during high school. It was a nice treat to be able to go to pool just Mom and Madeline. We had so much fun and Madeline was so brave! She loved going down the big waterpark-style slide (and the small Swan slide) and off the low diving board (which is still probably 4-5 feet off the water) as well as exploring the rest of the pool.

No better way to cap off a trip to the pool than with ice cream!

We also spent quite a lot of time inside as any normal person would do when faced with 115 degree temperatures - walking outside felt like opening the door of your oven, a rush of hot air in your face. So Mason spent lots of time exploring Nana and G-man's apartment, crawling up and down on the chairs, couches, beds, etc.

He also worked on perfecting his walking up and down the long apartment hallway. He was TERRIFIED (Madeline's word) of the elevator for the first few days until we all sang during each trip and then he figured out it had buttons...then he couldn't get enough. He also loved playing with the cloth blocks and mastered putting the shapes inside the blocks as you can see in the following photos.

and Madeline is silly :)