Erie, PA: Home of the Oneders!

We arrived in Erie late, late, late (or early, early, early) depending on how you look at it. We enjoyed a couple days of downtime while we rested from our Chicago adventures. We mostly visited with family and caught up on each other's lives. Things kicked in to high-gear on Friday...

As many of you know, Shaun's dad passed away in 2001. Because it is imporant to us that our girls know Shaun's dad as best as possible, we took Miss G and Miss L to visit his gravesite for the first time. We also made a special Fourth of July wreath to display. While we know that the girls won't remember this first visit, we hope that over time they will understand. It meant a lot for Dada to take his baby girls to meet their Grandpa Dale!

Aunt Chrissy, Uncle Greg, and Jaret had us over for enchilada's Friday night! Not only were they delicious, but they made us feel like we were close to our tex-mex culture of Oklahoma!

The girls thought cousin Jaret was hilarious. He had them laughing so hard they could barely stand!

While I do not know what my husband is doing in this picture, I assure you he is not licking his plate. I've taught him better than that!

The next day was the 4th of July! Hub's family has a big picnic/family reunion to celebrate our Nation's birthday (and Aunt Trisha and Grampa's birthdays, too). We enjoyed appetizers and drinks, played a little baseball, and had dinner and cake. The picnic was at Aunt Cheryl and Uncle Neal's house which is right off of Lake Erie. We were able to walk to the edge (it is a cliff drop off) and see the beautiful view! The girls spent the day trying to get drinks of the brightly colored, alcoholic beverages and playing with Cane, Cheryl and Neal's golden retriever.

Our family!

Gabby trying to get Cane (notice the bling)!

Lilly flirting through the window

Daddy playing baseball!

Daddy pegging cousing Kimbar and
ending the baseball game...oops!

We already like dressing up! More pics of this to come!

The next day we headed to the beach. Okay, I'll be honest and say that I was a little concerned about vsiting a beach in Pennsylvania. I mean I had visited less than 4 months ago and Lake Erie was a solid sheet of ice...people were actually ice fishing! Who knew people actually ice fished?!? Anyways, I was preparing for the water to be a balmy 50 degrees. Luckily, I was wrong...

First, we had a picnic and played at the playground. We also went out on a dock where you could feed bread to little fish. It was very neat because the water was clear enough that the girls could actually see the fish! They didn't understand why we were throwing perfectedly good bread at them, however, and stole quite a few bites! The peninsula and beach was the neatest set up because once we were ready to go swimming, we just crossed a road and went over a small hill and there was the lake! Very fun!

The girls love swmming and so we thought they might like the beach. Surprise, surprise...they hated it! When we put their feet in the water, the squealed and clung to us. So, we spent our day like this:

As you can see, the girls eventually warmed up to the beach. We plan on booking a trip to Hawaii real soon to give them more experience! HEHE!

Next stop: The zoo!