The Rhine Family: We are back from vacation and recovering!

We had a wonderful time on vacation and sad to say, I have no pictures to show for it. Doesn't surprise me because it was four adults and we left all responsibility at home, including our children! Katie and I spent a few days at a great outlet mall about 2 minutes from where we were staying. I got Rachel a lot of clothes mostly 24 months and 2T and 3 pairs of shoes. They had great prices at the Stride Rite store! I did buy about 10 items for myself and have enjoyed wearing some new clothes. After pregnancy, your wardrobe seems so limited as you always hope to keep losing more weight so you don't buy a lot of clothes, but you don't actually lose more weight. I also got some stuff I can wear to work as well. Can I just say how thankful I am that HCC doesn't really have a dress code, so I don't have to look super nice and have a different set of clothes for work. Speaking of HCC, I finally decided to see what in the world was going on there and accessed my e-mail account. I always have problems with it resetting stuff at the beginning of each semester and it was no different this time. So, I called and got it fixed and actually had a few e-mails from my students. I found out that my first night of class is on Aug 25, which was a week later than I expected! Woohoo for a month of vacation left!
What did Matt do on our trip? Well, he did hit the outlet mall with me for a few hours one day (what a good husband), but him and Josiah went to colonial Williamsburg on the days I was at the mall. They helped in a court case set back in colonial times and saw some of the other historic places. We all went to Virginia beach one day and had a blast boogie boarding. We played tennis, swam, ate, slept, watched movies, played pool and corn-hole, and Matt and I visited the walk-in clinic.

Matt is looking at some more houses to buy and I am really excited about that prospect. Matt went back to work the next day after getting home and I began the catching up on my chores. The house need cleaning, laundry needed to be done, Rachel's room needed to be rearranged and reorganized, Publix was calling my name and I was behind on my week of couponing. We had very limited access to a computer up there. It is Friday and I am caught up. Whew! I haven't been able to get to the gym because Rachel came home with a gross nose. That doesn't surprise me since she was around a bunch of other one year olds for 15 hours last week.

Rachel seems to be getting clutzier by the day. She falls down a lot and when she gets up, she takes one or two steps and trips again. I wonder where she gets it from...I still run into walls and doors. She has started playing with her kitchen more, loves to play with her phones and books, and will actually sit in your lap for you to read to her. Here is a cute story. She was being pretty quiet for a minute or two and I walk out to the kitchen and I find her drinking from this plastic container she has. She is standing by the water dispenser on the fridge and then press the lever with her cup for a refill. She drinks some more. After I realize what has happened, I look on the floor at all of the water that missed the cup. I couldn't believe she knew how to do that and that is what you were supposed to do when you wanted something to drink. Unfortunately, this is not something I want her doing at her age, so she got a big "NO" and a swat. Smart cookie.

This is my new school bag that I got for free at Staples. I loved the pattern and my bag from last semester was a little too small some days, so this will work great.

Here is Rachel on her rocking horse. She "made" this cowboy hat in vacation bible school. She wants to put the hat on, but then immediately tips her head back for it to fall off. Confused.