Starting to Slow Down

The past few weeks have been very busy for me.  Aside from our busy social calendar (which I will blog about in a little bit), I have been busy preparing for the new year of MOPS.  For those of you who don't know what MOPS is, it's a group for mothers (the group I go to has around 120 women) of young children.  There are monthly meetings where we eat, socialize, listen to a speaker, and have table discussions.  Since I am not working this year and Kira is getting older, I decided it was time to start taking on some leadership roles.  My position with MOPS is Publicity.  This job has required a lot of work leading up to the first meeting, such as ordering business cards, getting the website ready, and putting together the member folders and all of the information inside of them.  My job throughout the year should be easier, just doing monthly updates for the website and being in charge of the audiovisual stuff at each meeting.  Our first meeting is next Monday and I'm looking forward to it and meeting some more moms!  I am also excited about the following day, because I will be heading to Ocean City, MD.  It will be the perfect reward for all of my hard work.

Now on to the other stuff in my life.

We took Kira to Lake Accotink the day before my Dad's shoulder Surgery.  They wouldn't let us feed the ducks so it wasn't that exciting.

[caption id="attachment_986" align="aligncenter" width="224" caption="Walking by the Lake"][/caption]

Then the girls in our Bible Study went out on the town Friday evening to celebrate the upcoming birth of Carey's third child!  We had a nice dinner and then went down to the waterfront in Old Town to talk some more and open more presents.  Much to our surprise, our bench in the dark (that we picked because it was all that was left) was the perfect place to sit as a fireworks show started in front of us!

[caption id="attachment_985" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Cindy, Jennifer, Jen, Carey, Heather, and Melissa"][/caption]

We got to go to the pool a couple more times, one of which was with Lauren and her family!

[caption id="attachment_987" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Family Portrait"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_992" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Kieran and Kira"][/caption]

On Sunday night we went to Alexis and Hubie's house for dinner.  Kira entertained herself during dinner by pulling everything out of her diaper bag and eating every last puff I had packed away in it!

[caption id="attachment_988" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Alexis and Kira"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_993" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="This is fun!"][/caption]

On Monday we went to Landmark Mall to take advantage of the free chicken sandwich deal at Chick-fil-A.  Yes, I know I am addicted to these deals and can't pass them up!  The deal was that each person who wore a sports team logo gets a free original chicken sandwich.  Even Kira got a sandwich!  We all dressed in Celtics gear, but my mom went with the Steelers.  After lunch we let Kira play in the play area.  She loved it, mostly because she got to interact with other kids!

[caption id="attachment_989" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Go Celtics!"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_990" align="aligncenter" width="224" caption="Leapfrog on the Frog"][/caption]

I don't have any more pictures from the past week, but I also was able to go out to dinner one night with all of my school friends and another night with my college roommates.  On Monday evening our whole family got together in the evening for dinner and to watch my parent's video from Alaska.  It was a full week, but I felt very blessed to spend time with everyone I care about!