July the 4th

we celebrated the 4th at the starlight spectacular with mimi and poppa by playing soccer, hanging out, and watching fireworks, of course!

we continued the celebration with friends and sparklers and bottle rockets!!!

and, yes, that's basically just as scary as it looks!

river fun

We celebrated the Fourth at the river again.  We spent three days out on the water with Mimi, Poppa, Brad, Steph, and the boys... Tripp was super proud of his daddy's boat!  The weather was fantastic and there was much fun to be had!!!

After Grace finished her ride, these two boys made their way to the back of the boat and helped each other on...it was a lot cute!  They just took initiative...it got them what they wanted!

We made Carter hold onto a ski rope when he was swimming if not, he would just drift far, far away.  After getting him back to the boat a couple of times (which involved way too much cardio and swallowing half the river), our lesson was learned.

The kids practiced skiing on this ski trainer thing...we may have some real skiers next summer!!!

Hang ten. Kind of.

Our little queen of the boat is growing up way too fast!

Aunt Steph helped the kids make s'mores in the oven and they were yummy!

The sun, water, and fun wore us out!

But, I'm ready to go back now!!!

fireworks

the days before the starlight spectacular it poured.  we decided at the last minute that we would venture out into the mud and puddles for the firework show and it turned out to be fun little night.  michael w. smith was singing as we squatted to play duck, duck, goose while waiting for it to get dark.  once the sun began to set, we made glow stick creations.  and, we ended the night with an exciting fireworks display (but, we totally missed andrew!)

Remember the 4th of July?

I barely do.  A lot has happened since then!

We celebrated the Fourth at the river.  Grace played a few holes of golf with John and Poppa.

She loved it!

Mimi and Poppa took the kids on a little nature walk.

Grace found some bugs.

Lily and Carter were nature walk partners.

And, they found some tiny frogs.

Carter played a little golf.  I was scared.

After dinner, we watched all the fireworks that were going off everywhere!

Lily and Beth made sure that we had a few fireworks of our own.

The next morning, we headed out on the boat.

The girls had fun tubing together!  They are getting too big!

Carter was as cool as usual.

I tubed with the kiddos...lots of giggling was going on!

The boys joined us at dinner time.  While we were getting dinner ready, Andrew read a book to all the kids.  They were WILD!!!  Beth was attempting to calm them all down and it worked for a few minutes.

After dinner, we took the boat out to watch a for.e.ver long fireworks show.  It was pretty awesome and so fun because I sat with Drew and watching fireworks with him is one of my most favorite things to do!!!