In which Nana and Papa come and we celebrate the 4th of July

It was soooo wonderful to see my family...we have waited a long time. This was the longest stretch we have ever gone without seeing them. Carter was very excited. He is pictured below awaiting their arrival. He sat there for about 1/2 hour!

Together we drove out to Mechanicsville, Virginia to visit my grandparents. It was the first time they had met our kids.
We spent some time enjoying Uncle Greg and Aunt Beth's extensive property. Carter was in heaven with all the sticks, bugs, mud, and frogs! Below you will also see my angelic sister freshly returned from England. She is still glowing. :)
For some time Carter has talked about when he gets bigger he will be able to go fishing....well, his dream came true. Here he is, my big man:

Three generations of Goldsmiths:
For the 4th we went over to a couples house from church. We enjoyed their back yard immensely. And the company, of course. And the food.

Piper and her sweet friend Issac:
Andy had Monday off so we visited the science center in Birmingham. Carter's favorite park was touching a shark!!!

Andy and I playing around with the peg board:
The special exhibit at the science center was Mr. Potato head, complete with a chance to meet Mr. Potato head himself. Piper Rose did not enjoy it one bit!
Here is Carter-boy shaking his hand:

Strawberries!

It's pretty warm here. We have hit ninety degrees several times already and it is only May. We were in the pool before 10 o'clock today! Yikes!

We decided to invest in some shades for the kids. Here they are proudly sporting their sun glasses.

Since it is warmer here than the northwest the strawberry season is in full swing. Saturday we had a good time picking berries. There is very little in this world that my children love more than berries.

(Rosie had a hard time distinguishing the red berries from the red dirt clods.)

A little trip

Last week we found out that Andy would be going to a conference in Champaign, IL the following Monday. We decided that we would all go. We had never been through that part of the country and we would only be a few hours of Chicago.
Monday through Friday we bummed around Champaign which was a surprisingly fun town. (What's wrong with Huntsville? Why can't it be cool?) There were a ton of parks and the kids and I spent a lot of time outside and enjoying the hotel pool.

People are not joking when they say Illinois is flat:

We also went to a little science center in Champaign. Carter got in touch with his nerdier side and Piper Rose found a "baby" to take care of.

Chicago was huge! And freezing cold! But it is a beautiful city. We walked about 12 miles on Saturday and Sunday seeing the sights.

Saturday turned out to be National Train Day so we walked down to Union Station to check it out. The highlight was a friendly lady giving us her tickets so that we could cut in front of a huge line to tour an Amtrak train.

We also went to the zoo in Chicago. Piper spent most of the time growling at the animals.

A few videos

Here are a few videos mainly for the grandparents and aunties. The first one demonstrates the fearlessness and exuberance of our youngest and the second highlights olders's first attempt at singing his ABC's. Sorry for the lack of pants in the last one. It couldn't be helped.

Happy Easter!

Jesus is risen! We are so thankful for that every day and especially on Easter. We celebrated by having our community group over for a brunch and then hid a few Easter eggs. The eggs were confusing for Carter. We definately wanted to put the emphasis on Jesus and not eggs. However in an effort to reconcile both of them he decided that Jesus came back from the dead and brought us eggs and bunnies. Oh, well....we tried :)

Same goofy smile!? Must run in the family :)

Siblings?

I have never done a post yet comparing both of my kids to see how much they look alike. To make up for the fact that the camera battery was dead when we went to the petting zoo last week (boo!), I will take this opportunity to make the aforementioned post.

(Carter)

(Piper)