Seriously?

I swear, I don't know where she gets this from!

Gaver Tree Farm

I love, love, LOVE our new neighborhood! We literally live like a mile down the road from Gaver Tree Farm, where we spent our Saturday afternoon. This place is great! We took a hay ride and picked out pumpkins, jumped on this huge moonbounce "thingy," fed farm animals, ran through a corn maze, and munched on hot pretzels and cheese. It was one of those beautiful Indian Summer days and Quinn and I took full advantage of it.

Pumpkin Picker

The best we could do - not a bad picture!

All sass at the ripe old age of 4...

Check me out, with my new buddy!

We plan on heading back next Saturday evening with several families from our neighborhood. I've never had the pleasure of feeling a sense of community like this since I was 8 years old, living on Taft Road in Michigan. I realize how much "small town life" offers, and am thankful every day that we were able to find this wonderful house in this wonderful town so far away from the Rat Race that is Montgomery County!

YAY US!!!

So Busy

I'm sorry I've been MIA for basically the whole summer - the Kircher Family has been through a lot (all good, but just displaced) this year and we have FINALLY bought ourselves a house! So, with that, I haven't been posting because it seems every night after work I come home, make sure Quinn is fed, bathed and taken care of before we put her to bed, I have some project to take care of... painting a room, unpacking a box, fighting with Verizon to get my Internet up and running - you get the picture.We are in love with our new home and the neighborhood, but we have a LOT of work to do. So forgive me for being absent. I will try to get back to some normalcy before the year ends.


In short, Quinn is thriving and making us laugh every day. She also makes us want to pull our hair out sometimes, but what can you expect from a precocious 4 (and-a-half) year old?

A Family Day!

It's very rare when Kirch gets a Saturday off. Since it's July 4th weekend, he didn't have to work today so we took full advantage of it. After a yummy lunch at home of turkey sandwiches and fresh raspberries, we packed up and took Quinn to Rockville Town Square to play in the fountain. It was PERFECT outside today! About 85, sunny and a little breeze. I'm a whiner when it comes to warm, humid weather and today was nothing like the typical Maryland summer. I even played in the fountain with Quinn while Kirch sat back and took some pictures of us enjoying ourselves!

Today is a good day, Mommy!

Watch this trick...

Ta - da!

I am having a BLAST!!!

Don't scare my new friend!

I love family days!

When we got home, Kirch fired up the grill and cooked us some hot dogs and we had some spaghetti salad and Quinn and I topped our dinner off with a monster strawberry shortcake. Needless to say, our little water bug was beat-up tired by the time bedtime rolled around!

Camping, 2010

Last weekend we went on our annual camping trip with the Group. This year, along with the Scheleurs and the Mays (who make this trip possible every year), the Fernandezes, Barrons, Smiths, Mains, and one lone Buchoff also joined us. We headed to Happy Hills Campground in Hancock, MD and had a great time! We are not the true camping types anymore, so we were in a SWEET cabin! And I mean sweet - a fridge, A/C, TV, mattresses on the beds - it was awesome!!!

It was a fantastic time - the campground had a pool, a putt putt golf course, a pavilion for our Saturday night pot luck dinner, and a playground for the kids. Quinn had herself a blast in the pool - we are raising a fish! She's never been afraid of the water, but this summer she's taken it a step further - within an hour, she was diving to the bottom of the 3 foot side and picking up diving sticks off the pool floor. That pretty much solidified the fact that we need to give our water lover some swimming lessons!

Each evening was great - we roasted marshmallows and made S'mores, caught up with friends, and just generally enjoyed ourselves for the whole weekend!

Visiting Frederick

Last weekend Q and I spent the day at the Frederick Festival of Arts. We really enjoyed ourselves, although I didn't get to browse the actual "art" very much at all. Quinn was not into the shopping and browsing part of the festival! Needless to say, she's much more of an "On-the-Goer."

So to keep my girl busy, we stopped at the arts and crafts tent for young'uns. She LOVES getting her face painted, so she got a purple ladybug and then colored a sticker for herself (which promptly went onto her arm).

Is she doing a good job, Mommy?

Yep, acceptable art!

As we walked along Carroll Creek in and out of tents, Quinn kept noticing the paddle boaters and kayakers in the water. Naturally, she wanted to take a spin, so we got into a paddle boat of our own for a while and cruised to the end of the creek and back. She kept wanting to race all of the other people in the water. I, on the other hand, wished we could have had the creek to ourselves! But I digress...

The cutest First Mate I've ever seen

Carroll Creek

After we (she) tired of the art fair, we walked through Downtown Frederick and took in a couple of clothing shops along the way. We found a cool fountain that made for some cute pictures, the one of me she took with my Nikon D40X all by herself! Uncle Mike, maybe we have a photographer in the making!

Cute as a bug...

My budding artist took this!

Back and Raring To Go!

After a long hiatus, selling our condo, being homeless (thanks Mike and Rachel, for taking us in) while we look for a new house, I am back online and ready to BLOG!!!

So, the particular Sunday afternoon I'm writing about right now happened several weeks ago (May 23 to be exact), but these pictures are just too cute not to share. I think Quinn has found her future husband!

When we returned from our guided fishing trip in PA on Sunday, we had learned that Mike & Rachel (who graciously watched Quinn for us) had set up a play date with some friends of theirs who have a 4 year old son, Talon. Well it didn't take long for them to hit it off - they had a blast sliding down the hill, playing with the baseball tee, munching on watermelon and all around having a fantastic afternoon!

Even Uncle Mike gets in on the action!

BFF's - or is it TLA?

Mugging it up!

Hill roll!!!

Check me out - sledding in the spring!