Barlow Family Vacation

This year, for the Barlow family vacation, we invited everyone to come to our house for a week. It's a trek for them, since they all live within an hour of Philadelphia, PA. Even Jim's sister, who had a five week old at the time made the 6.5 hour drive to our home.

It was cozy for a week, as we all shared our house. We filled our time with different activities every day. We went to the library and saw a shadow puppet show, went blueberry picking, went to Claytor Lake for two beach days, went to the concert on Henderson Lawn (which was an Irish Folk Singer), and then, of course, visited the farmer's market on Saturday before going to Jim's residency program's picnic.

We tried to give them a taste of our beautiful area, as well as allowing for a lot of time to relax.

Berry-picking at Woodalls'.

 Time in our yard, enjoying the chickens! Ian took his seat and sat with the best view. Jim had just recently finished this beautiful coop.

 


Time spent at Claytor Lake's beach area. It gave us a taste of the beach vacation we were all desiring :)

 And this beach is perfect because there is a playground right nearby!

Oh, and we enjoyed having ice cream from the place down the street a few times that week. Gardeners kept busy!! It's so nice to be able to walk and get a treat like this.

But let's be clear. The week revolved around enjoying the newest member & generation in our family!!! We adored watching Ian and Seraphina have some cousin time.

 And we each reveled in the time we got to spend holding our family's newest member. What a sweet, lovable, cuddler!!

 Ian enjoyed sharing his toys with everyone AND especially loved all of the many different people who were willing to read him books!!

 

 I call this one "Real Life." This is about how this week looked. Movement, picture-taking, baby-holding, and interaction.

 After Jim gave me an adjustment in front of Ian for the first time in a while, Ian had to have the same. It was so neat to see him lie so still.

 The new mama!

And the week wouldn't have been complete without getting a full-family picture. Our family is growing, growing, growing.

The Lafferty family left early and the rest of us enjoyed a little more time together. Jim and I had a little date for breakfast one morning, too, which was really nice.

Until next time, family!!!

(I'm sorry for the delay with these pictures!!!)