July!!

The Whole Crew

We kicked off the month with a trip to St. Augustine! We enjoyed being so much closer to my brother's family while we lived in Savannah, and this visit was long overdue. We drove all day Friday making it in time to visit a little bit before bed. The kids have so much fun playing together and they are all old enough now that they don't require too much supervision which was a nice treat! We did some good eating, got to participate in their neighborhood 4th of July parade which included both a firetruck and a helicopter (and a whole lot of sweat!)

Cousins!

Wave riding fun at the beach

Playing in the sand

Checking out the helicopter

Light Saber war

Bike riding girls with their dolls

Then it was an afternoon at "the fort" to get our spot for the fireworks. The kids ran and played with bubbles and played catch and tag and begged us to come back next year and make it a tradition.

Trek to the fort

Frisbee!

Bubbles!

Pinwheel and a breeze. Mind blown.

Cousin pyramid

Haddon says, "Best Friends!"

We all enjoyed the fireworks and then made a mad dash back to our cars to try to miss some of the traffic getting home. We said goodbye on Tuesday morning and drove up to Savannah/Tybee for the day. It was so strange to drive back into all the familiar that was our home for a brief 14 months. Kai began to remember some things but not Penelope. We drove out to Tybee and walked around for awhile and had lunch and it was so ridiculously hot. We also picked up a hermit crab buddy for our crab at home and the kids enjoyed listening to it trying to escape the box it traveled in. Then we drove back in to town to walk around for awhile and just remember and of course hit up the candy store. Yum.

River Street. It was a LONG day.

Then it was back in the car to head across town to meet up with some friends for dinner. It was a great visit and so good to catch up some, but then it was back on the road to see how far we could get home before we just couldn't drive anymore. We did end up stopping between Macon and Atlanta for the night. A hotel treat for the kids and nice to have a hot breakfast before finishing the drive.

We found an entertaining little lunch spot to wait out the rain on the final leg of our drive.

It was back to work for just a couple of days for me and then we headed to the lake for Friday night and Saturday. What a treat! We relaxed and swam and fished and played and enjoyed just a secluded time of just the five of us NOT in a car. Ha.

Lake sunset from the deck

The next two weeks Kai had swim lessons and the boys did some fishing but we were mostly just getting back into a routine and recovering from all the travel. It has been nice to just let the kids stay up late and sleep in. Life just has an easier pace to it when everybody isn't having to get up and get ready to go early in the morning.

Couch snuggles

The kids and I took a day trip with Nonie and Dagan up to Nashville to visit my dad's parents. Such a quick and easy road trip after our long drives we've done this summer. Nice to get to see them and visit for a little while and we even got to go swimming.

One night we all went fishing at a pond nearby that has a nice little path around it and a playground that the kids enjoyed when they got tired of fishing. There were also ducks which we did not expect and they were a little too friendly for my taste.

Michael got to be super mom AND dad for a couple days while I had some sick time. Penelope and Tate met their teachers for the new school year (already?!) And we wrapped up the month celebrating Dagan's birthday and two friend birthday parties. 

Buddies making play date plans in the slide at Chick-fil-a. Sweet friends.

Summer is coming to a close...but we have a little more fun coming before we launch back into school routines.

4th of July cuties a little delayed