At the park

I think this is my last update from my recent trip home to visit my family.  After this I might (maybe ?!) actually have gotten myself out of the blogging hole I was in and be caught up.  Of course I cheated a bit by not actually writing much and pretty much overwhelming you with pictures, but I've been so far behind that this was the only way I could possibly fathom catching back up again.  To quote a former coworker (and oh how I love finding an excuse to use this in conversation!) "and the angels sang!" 

The first morning we were in Cary, we took Ethan to a little playground near Carolyn's house.  Carolyn and Brandon came out to meet us for a bit and here are a few pictures from our morning:

I remember the first time I brought Ethan here with his little buddy Graham when they were not yet walking.  They both pulled up and hung onto these little steps and didn't do much else.  Now Ethan is bounding all around...how time flies!

Swinging with Nana....the child LOVES the swings so much!

Eating lunch at the playground

We grabbed lunch from Cook Out and brought it back to the playground

Wheeeeee!  I love that Ethan is into the playground now because it is so much fun for me too :)

After the playground we went over to Carolyn's house where we decided to head over to a local park to take some family pictures.  We weren't able to stay for too long since we had to pick my mom's cat up at the vet, and weather and scheduling conflicts intervened and kept us from making it back to the park as planned later in the week, but I promised Ethan I would bring him back to this super fun park the next time we were in town though!

Posing with my sisters and Ethan and Brandon

Off and running...

We did get a chance to ride the train and Ethan was still for the first time all day

Ethan and my mom took a turn on the carousel too

Helping Aunt Carolyn push Brandon

Mr. Cool

Walking to the area where we staged our family pics

How pretty is the backdrop?!

Trying to entertain Ethan while the rest of the family took pics by the water...alas he was so crazed by this point in the day Ethan and I didn't make it into most of the posed pics (but hey, this is more fun anyway, right?!)

Brandon's very first train ride

Ethan and I on our train ride together

My mom playing with Ethan during the picture time as well...alas this child had no intrest in taking pics (are you seeing a pattern here?!) so we caved and let him play for a few minutes while Carolyn put her photography classes to good use and got some beautiful shots of Bethany and her boyfriend by the water