Cousins, cousins, and more cousins

Our day in pictures

  

Day 1 of the Ly Family Reunion

The girls were so excited to hang out with their cousins, that they woke up early to get a head start on their day.  My Texas friend Jennifer, who recently moved to New Jersey, took the day off to come down and visit us too.  We took a little stroll on the boardwalk with my oldest nieces and reminisced on the good ole days.  

Friendly game of chess

Christina, Jen, me and Kaitlyn

On the boardwalk

Four "Ly" men grillin'

A beautiful evening...

for some basketball!

Exploring Easton

$1 shucks topped off with a Bloody Mary

My personal greeting of "Welcome Ly Family" up on the wall

Hot Momma?

How convenient that I decided to dress the girls in blue today

A couple dads asked Trung how old Sophie was because they were impressed with her work

Masterpieces

Life as a crayon

Color us in

A fun place, but probably the last time we will go since the girls already seem too old for it

Trung's delicious Peruvian dinner

Hershey Park

Despite the incident from two years ago when Lydia fell and got a gash in her head and had to get four stitches, we went back to Hershey Park to see what we had missed from last time.  We spent the majority of our time at the water park, where I kept a close eye on the girls.  Some spots were quite slippery on the water structure and I could see how easily a child could get hurt.  The huge water slides were so much fun and the wait wasn't so bad since it was before noon.  We left the water park just before dinner and just in time too because it started to rain soon after.  We took a little break while it rained and then continued on several rides before the park closed at 11.  What a fun time and we'll definitely be back!

The water structure where Lydia fell.

Like mother, like daughter on the Waverider

That's a personal best...three wipe outs

Side surfing

A rainbow after the rain

Silly mirrors, perfect way to kill time while waiting in line

My little Reese's and Hershey's; they were barely in the categories two years ago and I can't wait to see how they measure next year

Morning in NYC

We arrived last night to New York and had dinner with Trung's brother Tai, who picked us up from the airport, and his wife Paula.  We spent the evening at their new place and woke up early to drive into the city with Tai.  We spent the morning roaming the New York City and took in as much as we could in just a few hours.

My building

Rockefeller Center, which the girls recognized from "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York"

St. Patrick's Cathedral aka Elsa's Ice Palace

The girls had a blast lighting candles all around the cathedral

High Five!

Looks like someone is hooked

World's largest Toys "R" Us store

Lunch at John's

They had pretty good pizza

Tai's high school friend's family, Tai and our family

With Tai at Times Square

Cow Appreciation Day

We got our "cow" on to get a free dinner today at Chick-fil-A.  I think it was the girls' very first time there and they loved it!

Mini Moos

Movie and Lunch

Since we knew that we wouldn't be able to watch the new Minions movie for the next couple of weeks, we decided to skip basketball today to take the girls and their friend Sofie.  Afterwards, we redeemed the kids' Benihana gift certificates for reading 15 hours for the library summer reading program.  We walked everywhere, so it was a nice little workout too.  :)

 Loving the reclining chairs

Sophie and Sofie, the newest Peanuts members

Striped

The girls have been consistently attending karate for the last few months and were finally rewarded with their first orange stripes.  Way to go!

Master Temple discussing the meaning of getting stripes

Sophie was very proud of herself

Lydia's turn, but she only got one stripe to start because she wasn't wearing her belt, which her claimed was due to a stomachache.

Little Lady

I thought Sophie was just being proper, but she was actually just trying to stay warm 

Fourth of July Fun

We had a fun filled Fourth, which started out with the annual Santa Monica parade and then Trung's co-worker's amazing house later in the day.  The kids remembered the house from last year and were super excited to go back.  Happy Fourth of July!

Observing the parade from outside Urth Caffe

Watched beach dodgeball for a little while since we had extra time on our meter

Gaby's spectacular set-up

Sophie on a mechanical bull; she hung on longer than I did

She's tiny, but tough

 

Trung hung on the longest

Oh, how the mighty have fallen

Trung lasted almost two minutes

My turn

Lydia didn't want to ride at first, but when she finally did, she wanted to go again

 My goofy girl