By: Mary Last summer our cousins who live in Vancouver, Canada came to visit us in Virginia! Ellie, Abram, John, and Gabby came without their parents. Their visit was delayed by a few weeks due to a COVID outbreak, and then our trip to Kings Dominion got almost got rained out, and then there was
Every summer when we go to Deer Valley, people ask us what it is. Short answer: it’s a family camp! Or, as I like to say, “it’s like summer camp but your mom and dad are there.” Perhaps a better description is that it’s like the camp in Marvelous Mrs. Maisel except instead of a
This summer has been a super busy one in which we have had almost zero free time, but we’ve barely left our neighborhood. Three of our kids have been on swim team, which absorbed nearly all of our time and energy. We have had no time to do any of the normal summer things I
At the beginning of the month the Krieger family skipped town for an incredible trip to Universal Studios in Orlando. This trip was the perfect late-winter getaway — a mix of sunshine, butter beer, and cousins. We saw dinosaurs, ate hot pretzels, and walked an average of 10 miles a day. By bedtime the kids
We just got back from family vacation, and I honest-to-goodness barely have time to mine through the piles of laundry we brought home before school starts tomorrow. The vacation-to-school boomerang is a lot to take in. I can’t figure out if it’s better for me to be busy — that way I have less time
This past week we decided to take a long weekend-ish and spend time with my family before “school” starts back up. Once again, the bizarre time-warp of 2020 snuck up on me, and what is, on one hand, “The Longest Summer Ever,” is also “Hold Up, It’s September?” We timed our trip to fall over
Sometime in July I started feeling the walls close in. It’s 2020, I’m sure you can relate. In fact, I probably felt like that even earlier than July, I just didn’t realize it. It was hot, school was on hold for the foreseeable future, and our routine of having no routine was feeling claustrophobic. Since
After I published my post about our week in Deer Valley, I loved how many people read the words “rustic,” “sore,” and “exhausted” and responded, “sign me up!” Oh yeah, I guess I did mention the snack bar, too. Maybe it was that? Several people messaged me saying that after they read about our experience
Eight years ago Tom and I were going to bed and I started crying and told him some version of, “He’s never going to be born and I’m going to be pregnant for the rest of my life.” About four hours later my water broke, and about 14 hours after that David was born. Little
If you’ve been around here for any amount of time you know the summer vacation drill — our family drives to a lake where we jump off the dock a thousand times, catch a catfish, and line the kids up at the end of the week for a forced cousin picture. This year we completely