Recent Family Pictures

These family photos are taken behind Chuck's office. This is the pond that is his view from his office window. The matching shirts are our Bodell family reunion t-shirts. We missed the reunion this year, but still took our family picture in them for Grandpa and Grandma. I know the big white chair is kind of ugly for pictures, but it was there and made it easy for the girls to each sit for a picture.

I removed people playing in the ocean in the picture above using PSE. I love the picture below of the girls and Chuck. I may take the time to remove all those people, too. Then it will seem like we were on our own private beach, not a crowded public beach.

Last picture: I was bored one night and played around on this website.

My Family from WiddlyTinks.com

Soldier homecoming surprise mix

Many of you know that I am usually strongly opposed to forwarding the cutesy e-mail message of the moment or posting it on our blog.

Adam, Shana, and Eli Cumberworth

But I happened to stumble upon this video on a the Facebook page of a friend serving overseas. I am making this rare exception to my usual scrooge approach on behalf of my good friend Adam Cumberworth, who in May, left his 6-month pregnant wife and nearly 2 year-old son to begin basic training before becoming an Air Force JAG. Last week, Adam got a 48 hour leave to go back to Shana for the birth of Emery Kate, but after two days was headed back to the Air Force.

God bless the Cumberworths, and all the families like them, for their service to our country! We wish you an equally joyful reunion when you see Daddy again!

VB (part 5of 5) - The Beach

The girls loved the beach so much. Splashing in the waves was their favorite. They would run and squeal while jumping over the waves as they came crashing in. The last morning we played with another family that was also there for the same conference. They had twin 4 year old girls. A lady near by asked if I had 2 sets of twins daughters. Oh my, that would be crazy!
Charly enjoyed the beach sand, but not so much the water. It took forever to get her to actually put her feet down into the water. She enjoyed chilling in the tent so much more.Lucy loved every minute of the beach. Although, at one point, Leland and Lucy came screaming hysterically towards us. Sobbing very badly and creating a huge scene. I thought maybe one of them had been stung by a jellyfish or something serious, by the way they were acting. We finally figured out that Lucy had dropped her goggles into the water while passing them to Leland and were now swept out to see. Based on their reactions to the situation, other possible scenarios was a shark biting off their arm. Seriously hysterical. All for a pair of dollar store goggles being swallowed by the deep dark ocean.Leland overcame a lot of fears at the hotel pool, even eventually jumping off the side of the pool and off the diving board. She also would swim across the pool without holding onto Chuck. All of this was with her life jacket on. Maybe next year we will actually go to a pool more than 3 times during the summer and take swim lessons.During nap time, I enjoyed 2 hours of reading my book undisturbed while lying on the beach. Thanks to my cute hubby for staying in the hotel room with all three sleeping girls, it was fabulous.

VB (part 4 of 5) - Cavalier Hotel

We stayed in the Cavalier Hotel when we were in Virginia Beach. The tower we stayed in was oceanfront, just off the boardwalk. This is the view from the top of the hotel.


The historic part of the hotel is called the "hotel on the hill". It was pretty, but it was obvious that it is only opened for the summer months and not kept in the best condition in the open common areas. The girls loved the big rocking chairs to rock their "babies". Click on the picture and you can see the big 'L' with the girls so excited to standby by their letter.When the storm happened on the first night, our room flooded with the rain (the carpet was wet, but no visible water) since we were on the first floor. We chose not to change rooms, since I discovered that being on the first floor was fabulous. Our room was in the best location - with the sliding door right out to the pool, no balcony, and the closest room to the walkway to the beach. But the wet floors just made it musty, so we requested a fan to dry out the floor and blow out the smell.

Charly loved the fan. She was hilarious.

Virginia Beach - Part 3 of 5 Dinner

We decided to go out to dinner for the "experience" and not just the food. So we scoured the coupon books and decided on a teppanyaki style Japanese Steakhouse. Leland LOVED it. Lucy, not so much. Charly is happy anywhere as long as she's sitting next to mom.
Leland tried using chopsticks, ate sushi, and all the other food put in front of her. She was a delight.

Lucy was a bit skeptical to begin with, then when the fire came and the cook joked that it burned her eyebrows, she lost it and never recovered. She ate nothing.

You can see at the end, Leland's excitement and Lucy's skepticism.

Charly enjoyed the attention from everyone around her. A table next to us full of girls celebrating a friend getting married, burst into laughter as they watched Charly take her chewed up chicken and try to feed it to me. At least she likes to share, but I'm not a fan of chewed up food.
Our dinner was delicious and it was a fun splurge for our family vacation.