I still don’t have a design in mind yet, but look for changes in the near future. And I’ll be sure to keep some photos available, since that’s one of the more important content areas to our non-Facebook family and friends.

And the end of August means back to school for Stephanie (again working half-time for the county), and the start of preschool for Lily!

As in past years, we have just returned from a great week in Corolla, North Carolina for family beach week. It’s always nice to get away for a bit, and with each year Lily has more and more fun running around in the sand and surf. I’ve added a slew of beach photos to Lily’s latest album, which also includes other summer fun we’ve had so far: soccer camp at the South Run Rec Center, visiting Grandma and Opa in Richmond, and a very hot afternoon at the City of Fairfax 4th of July Parade.

Barring any more unexpected derechos, we should be able to pack in a lot more craziness before September!

We’ve been having some fun now that the weather is warm and daylight hours push right into bedtime. As seen in recent photos, Lily has been spending a ton of time at Hidden Pond Nature Center, a little park just down the street. In addition to the usual pond/woods/mosquito fun, the Nature Center has exhibits and educational programs that Lily has really taken to. It’s a tiny little place, but it seems like there’s always something new to do.

Last weekend, we went to the annual Celebrate Fairfax festival – a huge community fair that we had been hearing good things about. It was a blast, and Lily had a great time playing games, eating junk food, and screaming with glee on some of her first carnival rides. From a mommy/daddy perspective, it was a success – decent price on tickets, very kid-friendly atmosphere, and good entertainment even for the 3-year-olds.

Finally, as seen in the thumbnail above, my eagerly-awaited inaugural homebrew recently emerged from the basement, and I’m happy to report that it was actually drinkable! The one gallon batch yielded about six and a half 16-ounce bottles, each of which were consumed selectively over the course of the past two or three weeks. Hopefully this is a casual hobby that I can continue – despite the effort, it was fun and rewarding. Also, it appears that Whole Foods sells various grain packs, so another batch is right around the corner.

Later in the month, we checked out the Spring-Mar Touch-A-Truck event, which gives kids a chance to climb around real fire trucks, garbage trucks, and other big equipment. We arrived a bit late, but still had a fun time. And Lily was playing shy, so only “looked” while Steph and I climbed around and honked horns.

April also marked Lily’s first trip to the circus! We all had a really great time; definitely worth the price of admission (despite the Groupon). The show (at the George Mason Patriot Center) was packed with people and excitement and though she had some ants-in-the-pants towards the middle, a box of popcorn, roaring tigers, and parading elephants held Lily’s attention. It’s almost a month later now and she still talks about it!

I’ve started Lily’s 2012 photo album – keep track of that, because I update it more frequently than the actual blog.

Grown-up activities last month included a terrific concert with Colin Hay (former front man of Men At Work) at the Birchmere - thanks to Becca for the tickets! I also finally broke open a Christmas present and am trying my hand at home brewing. The 1 gallon kits are pretty neat – self-contained, with everything you need to brew up a batch of tasty goodness. I bottle next week, then wait another two weeks until it’s completely ready. Fingers crossed that it turns out!

We were also happy to hear recently that Lily will be enrolled in the First Baptist Christian Day School starting in the Fall. It will be sad to leave her current daycare provider, who has been a wonderful part of Lily’s life for almost two years. But it’s time for our big girl to move on up!

Following up from our last post, our refinance process did finally go through, and Steph and I spent a romantic Valentine’s Day afternoon together signing papers in a generic Title company conference room. Well worth it, though.

I have a load of photos to get through from the past month, but expect those to be posted soon. Yikes – I’ll need to start a 2012 album now. And it’s already March. Tick tock, tick tock.

In other family news, we’re in the middle of refinancing our mortgage. Rates were too low to pass up, and though we’ve only been in our current place for a year and a half, the potential monthly savings will be significant. And surprisingly, the stack of paperwork is only a fraction of the loads we’ve seen in the past. Rate’s been locked in, and the appraisal was done this week – so now we wait.

November was quiet, but fun – birthday celebrations for dad and Christine, as well as a family wedding (congrats to Jessica and Marc!) at the Woodend Mansion of the Audubon Naturalist Society in Maryland. For Thanksgiving, we stuffed ourselves silly with the A’Hearns, then hopped down to Richmond to visit Steph’s folks over that weekend.

But now incredibly, Christmas is right around the corner. We were just beginning to regain mobility after Thanksgiving, but are deep into holiday shopping, mostly thanks to Amazon. Tree is up, house is decorated, and threats to Lily about Santa watching are in full effect. We also thought we’d give the whole Elf on the Shelf thing a try. I’m not sure she’s fully made the connection about being on good behavior, but she definitely knows that presents are coming. She gets that from her mother.

As always, we add photos regularly (with or without an accompanying blog post).

Our weekends have been pretty full recently, but with lots of annual events and fun: Rosslyn Jazz Festival, Maryland Renaissance Festival, and International Gold Cup, to name a few. And of course, we always look forward to W&M Homecoming, coming up this weekend.

New photos in Lily’s 2011 album!