4th of July

We had a fabulous 4th of July Holiday!  I like this holiday a lot because it signals the half way point of summer.  I'm not a huge fan of heat and humidity so I start to look forward to fall just about now.  With that said, I do love the beach and the water and summer days to do fun summer things .. .. just not sweating to death trying to clean my house.  I think if I had central air and a pool I would enjoy summer a LOT more.

Our local fireworks were on July 3rd this year which was great because that meant Darryl could stay up without worrying about being tired the next day since he gets up at 3:30 am for work.  This is also the first year that we let the boys stay up to watch them and to say they were excited is an understatement.  All day people were setting off firecrackers and other fireworks and the boys would exclaim, "I hear them, mom, I hear them!"  We also planned to catch lightning bugs for the first time too! 

 We headed outside about 9:00 - just when the fireflies were waking up :-)

 Josh was trying to get the courage to catch a firefly but he just couldn't do it.  He has been stung by bees already this summer and to him, every bug has a stinger. 

 Nate, on the other hand, is the karate kid of fireflies.  He sees one, reaches out and grabs it in one swoop.  Now, the poor bug is a little worse for wear but still, can you catch one like that? HA! 

 Putting the bugs in the jar and watching them light up - this was something Josh enjoyed!

 We had a "great outside party" on the deck too.  We LOVE our new deck- this is the first year since we bought the house 10 years ago that we didn't have to drag chairs out to watch the fireworks (which we can see from our front yard).  Instead we just all sat on the deck, drank chocolate milk and ate popcorn and cupcakes :-)

Then on July 4th, we continued with our normal tradition and headed to the beach. We slept in a little (well, the boys didn't but they did let me go back to bed once they were set up for the morning).  Had a good brunch and then hit the road with our towels and a picnic :-)  It was kinda funny because we stopped at Speedway in the next town over to get ice.  I said I wanted a frozen coke because I love them so Darryl said he would get us all drinks.  Twenty minutes later we finally left HA!  Nate, the picky child, wanted just a lemonade.  Of course after paying for it, then getting ice, THEN filling our cups with slushies, Darryl found that there was no lemonade on the fountain so then the had to go back and buy a bottle of lemonade for poor Nate HA!  We thought we were finally on our way until we hit a huge traffic jam.  Our normal 1 hour and 15 minute drive took over 2 hours.  We were VERY happy to get to the beach!!

 The weather was perfect and the water wasn't too bad, for Lake Michigan.  :-)  Josh loves going out in the water.  As much as he has a "fear" of pools, he loves the lake because he can touch bottom. 

 My little sand bug, Nate.  Always covered with sand.  He's not such a big fan of the cold water and prefers to stay close to shore.  (He'd rather swim in a pool any day!)

 The beach was full but not nearly as crowded as last year when it was 105 degrees.  This is our favorite spot in the world - this whole general area.  We want to live in this town.

 We got out our kites and it was a perfect day for flying!  Josh had his high up in the air and love it.  Nate's liked to take nose dives but Darryl eventually got it up in the air.

 The boys eventually came back to the water and Darryl helped them build sand castles for a bit before we all went back into the water before heading out for our picnic.

This was our picnic spot.  We were too hungry for me to take one before we ate :-)  My kids love picnics so this was the best thing ever.  For our picnic we had Cheese, Crackers, Salami, Pickles, Potato Salad, Greek Salad (I was inspired by a Pioneer Woman episode), Hummus, Chips, and Strawberries.  It was soooo good!! 

 Once done with our picnic we headed to Ruth Anne's Ice Cream shop - our favorite place to stop after going to the beach. 

 Don't you love that chocolate face?  I do!!!

We had a fabulous day.  We even stopped and picked up info on a few houses and were greatly encouraged by what we saw.  Don't worry, we have a 5 year plan at this point but we do have a dream :-)  I'd love to be 10 minutes from the beach . .. ..