Leaves!

Pretending to be a scary monster

Homestead Resort in Virginia

In mid-October, we spent a weekend at the Homestead Resort in Virginia - it was a beautiful resort, but we had terrible weather and a cranky kid, so we essentially drove 4 hours each way and spent lots of money to swim in the hotel swimming pool...



Practicing the swimming skills she's learning in her swim class at the YMCA

Silver Spring Jazz Festival

A few weeks ago, we went to the Silver Spring Jazz Festival with some friends. Here's Kate "dancing" with her friend Andrew.

Outer Banks Beach Vacation

The week of Labor Day, we rented a beach house in Nags Head, NC with friends. This is the sixth year we've been in the Outer Banks in early September and we had by far the worst weather this time - mostly cold and rainy. We still managed to have fun though.

Here's Gordon, Lars and Kate "sand" surfing during a brief break in the rain.

Kate and Gordon playing with Moon sand on one of the rainy days


Playing in the water on the sound side

Swimming in the pool

Making sand castles on the ocean side

Despite the rain and cold temperatures, Sadie still had the time of her life.



At the aquarium in Manteo on one of the rainy days



Running with Mom on the beach

Water Paints

This was after we realized the water paints were not washable (who makes non-washable paints for kids anyway??)

Kate's Obession with Noah (and her other cousins)

Kate LOVED spending time with all her cousins in Michigan. Here she is with Noah, who she particularly idolizes.

Here she is with Anna, showing off Anna's nail-painting job.


Kate and her cousin Jessica

With Uncle Mike

Kate and Noah playing My Little Ponies (You can kind of notice in this picture that Kate's front two teeth are grayish colored. She fell a few weeks ago and cut her lip pretty badly. She cried for a while when it happened, but I didn't think too much of it because she tends towards the melodramatic and will cry equally hard over a hang nail...Well, last week, her top two teeth started to turn darker. Paul took her to a pediatric dentist this week, who said there is not anything we can do at this point - they're not infected and they may turn back lighter or they might stay dark until she loses them. I'm not too thrilled about the prospect of her having 2 gray teeth for the next 3-4 years, but at least she didn't knock them out. Paul tells me I need to quit talking about it, because I'm giving her a complex. She keeps going to the mirror and saying "Yup, they keep getting darker...")

Can you tell that Kate is used to the hot, humid DC summers and not the 68 degree Michigan weather?

Trip to Michigan

We spent last week in Michigan at a house in Grand Haven with my parents and brother Tim and his family. We also got to spend some time in Grand Rapids with Paul's family. We all had a great time, especially Kate, who idolizes her cousins. We also got to meet my brother Mike and his wife Danielle's new baby, Lucas.



Papa Marsiglia and Kate

Grandma Marsiglia and Kate

Grandpa and Grandma Gray and Kate

The Marsiglia clan (Mike, Aidan, Tim, Mom, Dad, Danielle, Lucas, Noah, Jill, Jacob, me, Paul and Kate)

The Marsiglia cousins (Lucas, Noah, Jacob, Kate and Aidan)


Kate was less scared of the water and sand this year than last year :)