Good Times...

We had the best time Saturday night with our "long lost" cousins. It is so nice to have such awesome family near us. We had all kinds of activities at our little "welcome home luau party."

-fireworks, parachutes, bonfire, smores, waterballoons, sprinklers, pinata, and homemade chocolate malt ice cream.

Can't wait for the next get together.

Here are just some pics from the celebration.....

Thanks Aunt Stacy

For taking us to the pool. I think mom had a great and peaceful time to herself and was able to get some things accomplished.

Happy Birthday Marina Claire

We had a very busy but fun day. Marina was overall not too excited about her birthday party and not excited at all about her cake. She got some great toys and better yet some new outfits!!

I attempted to take a pic of all 3 girls and it didn't work out well at all. The birthday girl was more interested in playing in the mulch.

Happy Birthday Emma Elane!!!

Happy 7th Birthday to my oldest princess!

We had the best day today and last night. We are all tired, but "good tired" it is. We started the birthday "festivities" with a little "campout" in a little tent in our backyard. (The first camping experience was interesting to say the least. I accidentally set up the tent on top of a sprinkler head and it scared the heck out of me in the morning.)

ANYWAY :) Emma and Lauren and I camped out last night and the weather was SO awesome. The best thing is that my pillow was cold all night. :) It was a fairly peaceful night except for the drunks being pulled by a pickup on some type of sled thing on the concrete roads. My sleepy husband in bed didn't hear this VERY loud activity that lasted 15 or so minutes and the girls slept right through it.

Emma is really interested in learning how to golf, which is a good hobby to have I suppose. We gave her a driver and some pink plastic golf balls and tees. She is already planning on practicing a little tomorrow.

Then grandpa came over to stay with the semi crabby baby while we went to the bowling alley for a little friend party. The party went very smooth. The girls had a good time and they acted like they hadn't seen eachother in years. What a cute little group. Emma even got a personalized bowling pin. :)

Emma,

Dad and I love you SO much and are so proud of you!

"The 4th" part II

Saturday's weather was quite out of the ordinary for the 4th but it wasn't totally a washout and the sun even came out for the evening festivities.

Saturday was packed full of fun activities for the kids and us adults. We started with the parade at 10 and there was definitely some drizzle, but that didn't stop the kids from leaving the shelter of the minivan to grab the candy.

After another huge meal, and some inside activities, we went back to Main St. for the bathtub races. I had no idea what these bathtub races were but turned out to be quite a good time. Dave was trying to talk me in to "getting a team together" ...uh, no thanks. Anyway, here are some pics of the action. Our cousin TJ and his brave wife were part of the action. Pretty much you had to maneuver a cart carrying the bathtub and person down the street, through some cones and back while trying not to spill too much water out of the bathtub and while trying to avoid the water balloons that are boing thrown your way from the crowd on both sides of the street. It was timed and the water depth was measured after each race. It was pretty entertaining.

After the bathtub races came the duck races. We "bought" a duck to race in the race. The water was flushed down the street causing a small stream along the curb. The ducks were sent down the stream and obviously the first duck at the end of the street won. It was pretty fun to watch until we spotted our duck #1333 floating down the street in about 75th place. After the real races, all the kids got to pick out a duck and there were 10 $5 winners. Lucky Patrick was one of the winners and boy was he excited.


The sun finally came out and we grabbed a bunch of food and went up to the park to grill out with more of the family and to go to the stockcar races.
Lauren was telling greatgrandma that they were going to go to the park instead of the races. I don't think greatgrandma could even hear what she was instructing her to do so she just kept smiling and giggling. :)

I lied when I said I had about 200 photos....there are actually 317 pics so believe me I am trying to keep the number posted to a minimum. Here are just a few other random ones that don't need an explanation with them...

The 4th

Just in case someone actually still checks my poor blog, here is finally a new post. Sorry for the total laziness again. :)

First of all, we had one of the most fun weekends in such a long time. Truly, there is nothing like a small town 4th of July!!

I took over 200 photos but I won't bore everyone with too many. I can never seem to get them organized either on this thing so bear with me....

First of all, the girls are already talking about going to Stuart next year. In fact, Dave and I would love to go again but our days off have to fall just right, so we aren't going to be holding our breaths.

The weather was the only thing that wasn't totally perfect but even that was ok. We got "drizzled" on a few times during the day but the temp was pretty bareable and we didn't even have to consider sunlotion.

We had a great time playing at all the parks on Friday. The "zip line", or as Lauren would call it "the zip code" was everyone's favorite. Even us adults had to try our turn. I won't post those pictures though cause they're pretty scary. The kids look much cuter on it then we do. And, how cool is it to have tons of swings so no one has to fight over them.

How precious is this picture with Grandma or I should say Greatgrandma! Marina was unavailable as she was sleeping in the van traveling between towns.

We even made a fun trip out to the farm, too bad we got lost along the way. Poor mom kind of forgot the way I guess. Anyway, the kids had a blast on the trampoline. Uncle Jack has been working on the house and it is so neat! Check out how filthy Lauren's legs are. :)

We lit a few fireworks at grandma's on Friday night. The prize for the bravest kids goes to Marina and Lauren but poor Emma came in last place and had her hands over her ears most of the time. :)
Of course we had to shoot off some parachutes. Brian caught the first, Emma caught the second and that was it. I think we have more ready for a month or two when we all are together here.

And now for more cute pics. Did I mention that I LOVE fourth of July outfits.

I didn't lie when I said that I took a ton of pictures. I don't want to overwhelm anyone with them... :) but that's it for tonight. More great pics tomorrow.