Abby and Zoë

We received a post card from Celeste today...

We said our good-bye's to Nonna last night after the girls had a good hour in the pool (with relatives - the Stutzman's - who gave them so much attention) and some dinner with Nonno, Aunt Barbara, Uncle Rich, and Auntie Elizabeth.  Nonna was heading back to PA early this morning with Aunt Cyndi, Uncle Marc, and Uncle Dan.  I had put Abby and Zoë in their sleeping bags on the floor to sleep, while Chris and I each hogged a bed to ourselves.  Abby woke up a little after 2:00 a.m. having had a small accident, and while I cleaned that up Abby had crawled into bed with Daddy, which is where she slept the rest of the night.  Zoë crawled into bed with me, but not until about 6:00 this morning.

With the girls up bright and early, we relaxed and watched a little bit of t.v. and then got ready to head out.  We said good-bye to Nonno Ernie, and also to Bill and Sarah whom we saw in the lobby, and then headed out for home.  First we stopped for some breakfast on the road, then dropped Auntie Elizabeth's rental car off and she rode with us back up to the house.  The girls and I took a nice nap around 1:00, and took it easy playing inside for the rest of the day.

None of us got much sleep last night, but the girls woke up early nonetheless.  After Daddy took the girls down for an early morning beach run, we went down to have breakfast at the buffet with Nonna.  Once we were done, we headed over to Matt's and arrived about 9:00 a.m.  I started on the girls hair right away.  At 10:00 Caitlin's sister-in-law Sharon came over with her kids Dylan (the ring bearer) and Erin (another flower girl) so that I could follow them over the Caitlin's parents house.  I was just finishing up Abby's hair when they arrived, but hadn't done Zoë's curls yet, so I grabbed the curling Iron and finished over there.  Pretty soon hair-do's were done and 'Cinderella dresses' were on and it was time to head to the ceremony site.

There was only a few minutes to wait before Abby and Zoë were cued to head down the aisle.  There was some grass they had to walk through before getting to the actual aisle.  Both girls began to get nervous as they got closer.  They were holding hands, then letting go, then Zoë just stopped.  Abby kept trying to get ahold of Zoë to get her to walk, but then gave up and just went down herself.  Zoë walked a little ways, then threw back her head in laughter and turned and walked back towards me.  I walked closer and tried to urge her down, then I walked around to the front, but she wasn't budging.  Finally Matt went down and took her hand and walked with her down the aisle.  It was hot, but the girls sat very nicely and watched Caitlin and Matt get married.  We had a couple of pictures there, and then went to the Red Lion Inn for the reception.

We had hors d'oeuvres and milled around chatting, and then once Matt and Caitlin arrived and said their hello's, we went downstairs to begin the food.  In between courses we took some photos, then there was the cake cutting, and then some dancing.  Despite how tired the girls were, they didn't want to leave the dance floor.  Finally at about 4:00, we headed out to go back to the hotel.

We couldn't get Abby and Zoë off the dance floor.  They were over tired, having little sleep the night before, an early morning job on the beach, and no nap. We were surprised they still had some energy left for dancing, but they did, and they cut it up.  Here's proof...

Abby and Zoë woke up early this morning.  Laura had a horrible night's sleep, so I quickly got dressed, scooped up the girls in their PJs and flip flops, and headed down to the beach.  We saw Cousin Bill down in the lobby who accompanied us to the beach.  The beach was almost empty, and the sun hadn't burnt off the overcast yet.  The girls took the opportunity to run all the way down the beach and back.  Without Mommy around to reign them in, they took off and didn't turn back until I was almost out of site.  I was slightly shocked, because they usually keep close, but they just kept running and running.  Nothing like an early morning jog to get the juices flowing.

We arrived to the barbeque right around 6:00 this evening.  We hung out and said hello for a few minutes before pretty much everyone had arrived and we got some dinner.  Abby and Zoë ate a little of what we served them, but then were off to play with Sarah, Cassie, Dylan, and Erin.  Finally we had to pull them away from their games, which was met with tears from Zoë, to get them back to the hotel for a bath and bed.

The girls love to visit hotels.  It is always a special treat.  Today we left Portsmouth for Hull Beach.  It was super hot in Portsmouth, and the temperature kept rising all the way through Massachusettes.  We were delayed through the tunnel almost an hour.  During the trip the car was reporting the outside temperature over 110, heat index.  Nonna rode with Aunt Elizabeth and we all arrived at the hotel around 4:30.  The girls immediately cooled off in the air conditioned room and watched cartoons before getting ready for the pre-wedding BBQ.

The girls had a large cheering section today for their last swim lesson.  They did some of the usual games, but they also went under the rope, with the help of Brooke.  The first time around, Abby went under but didn't get the timing quite right with the holding of the breath and I think also got water up her nose.  Zoë saw some coughing and sputtering from her sister and then wasn't so eager to swim under the rope.  After many tries to get started, Brooke eventually just hopped Zoë over the line.  Zoë was bummed afterwards, so Brooke promised that she'd help Zoë do it after class.  When it was noodle time, Abby did a great job keeping her feet off of the bottom and swimming the whole time, she also did really well with her form when on the kick board, even though she doesn't get much of anywhere.  Zoë could work on form, but does motor around pretty well.  After the kids were dismissed, Brooke took Zoë back over to the line and finally, after a few attempts, Zoë went underneath.  Once they had their towels, they got to go get their certificates and choose a lollipop.

When we got back from our appointment, we saw Auntie Elizabeth's rental car in the driveway.  Apparently she had just pulled in.  It was lunch time, and we'd been told we were going to Sake for lunch so Abby and Zoë stayed in the car while I went in to gather everyone.  We headed over to the restaurant, got a window seat, and chatted.  Both of the girls were so excited to see Elizabeth and they mentioned how long she's been in California.

Auntie had surprises for them at home too.  They got these 'little miss' phones that talk to each other.  It's like the old tin can concept, except instead of cans they are little phones.  The wire connecting the phones is really long so the girls were able to be in separate rooms talking to each other.  They were laughing and laughing, they thought it was so funny.  They just wanted to play with those for the rest of the day.  After nap they got more surprises, some strawberry shortcake hair things, some crazy lip gloss set, and stick on tattoos - Nemo and Little Mermaid.

Abby and Zoë had a re-certification appointment over at the Community Campus, which meant that they got to take their first ride in their new booster seats.  They had been using their convertible car seat in the belt positioning booster mode, but we got the new seats because they are much more narrow and will allow for company in the back seat in a few months.  Being that their old seats were so wide, and the girls so not wide, the seat belt is actually positioned much better in these seats, and the girls really do feel like big girls riding in them.

The girls were so afraid that they were going to get a finger prick to test their iron levels today, even though I assured them that I didn't think they'd be needing one since they had one last time.  Abby and Zoë played while I got checked in, then they each got to choose a book.  Abby chose "Dancing in the Wings" by Debbie Allen and Zoë chose "The Velveteen Rabbit" by Margery Williams.  We read the books and then it was time for the girls to get weighed and measured.  This would also be the 'station' where they'd get finger pricks should they need them, so neither of the girls were in a hurry to get over there.  I questioned the woman immediately about this and she let them know that there would be no finger pricking.  Abby weighed in at 32.4 pounds and her height was 40 inches even.  Zoë was 32.6 pounds and 40 ¹/₄ inches.  That puts them both in the 25th percentile for height and just above the 10th for weight.  After this we had to sit and wait a little bit more, so Abby sat beside me quietly reading her book, and Zoë played with the toys.  When the nutritionist came over to get me, so told Abby that she was the perfect role model sitting there reading her book.  The nutritionist was also very impressed with our green smoothies, and how much the girls drink of them (16oz.) and said that she could see how healthy we were by looking at us.

This afternoon Abby and Zoë had to go in for their second hep A shots.  They have been dreading this day since we went last month to get it done and were told we needed to wait until this month.  They heard me make the call before swimming and did not forget that they had that appointment later on.  We got to the office and waited a bit, then Abby had to go potty.  While Abby and I were in the bathroom, Zoë had been called in so when Abby and I came out of the bathroom we saw Zoë walking out of the room with a bandaid and lollipop... (we'd had them each choose a dum dum lolly before going, that they'd be able to have afterwards) and no tears!  Abby was nervous to go in, but Daddy scooped her up onto his lap and she was done super fast with no tears as well.  She got her bandaid and lolly and we were on our way.

Nonna decided that they should get a little something besides just a lollipop, so we went to Dunkin' Donuts and both of the girls decided that they wanted a strawberry donut.  Back in the car Abby asked Daddy, "Daddy, since we did such a big kid job, can we get our new big kid boosters?"  We've been checking out the high back boosters and been talking about them, so the girls knew that they'd most likely be getting new seats.  Sure enough, we were close enough to Wal-Mart that Daddy said okay and we went over and got the seats.

We got to go to the movie theater yet again, this time with Nonna.  We saw 'Wallace and Grommit in the Were Rabbit', with the same cartoon preview as last time.  No popcorn this time, but Zoë snuggled up with Nonna the whole time, while Abby sat up very interested in the movie, but making sure she was holding Nonna's hand.

After the movie we walked over to Chipotle and got some lunch, which we brought outside to eat.  Abby and Zoë were bummed that we weren't going to Sake for lunch, but they got over it.  They were preoccupied with the Coldstone Creamery next door though.  We passed on the ice cream from the shop and they each got mini cones at home instead.