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

Summer Fun - June wrap up

This has been our best summer to date. We have enjoyed a mix of relaxing with no schedule and having fun adventures. It has really felt complete. Here's some of what we did in June!

Kai and Penelope got to go to KidLife at Dawson (VBS) and loved it. Kai always does but this was a first for Penelope and she really enjoyed it too. Tate got some one on one time with daddy, but got to enjoy a treat on Family Night! =)

Kai had to get a cavity filled. It went amazingly well. Kudos to a wise, experienced dentist!

There was a Greek mythology day at the library which Kai has been very interested in so he and I went and checked that out. And Dagan had some sand in the yard for a project he was starting and we played in that one Saturday.

There has been a lot of fishing going on. Possibly Kai's new favorite away from home activity. And we all enjoyed a day away at "the camp" exploring a bit for Father's Day. We also got the pool out one Saturday.

We got to visit with some family from Minnesota as they came thru on their way home from the beach.

And we went to the zoo!

We also had a pool/dinner party with friends but there was too much going on for any pictures. A fun summer night though. Soaking up the freedom summer brings!

And plenty of our favorite: Taco Casa.

DISNEY!! - Day 5

All good things must come to an end eventually, right? What an awesome vacation. Thank you Aunt Leigh for making it possible!! It exceeded all expectations. We decided to head back to the Magic Kingdom for our final day since there is the most for everyone to do there. We experienced some Disney magic getting on the bus this morning. It was pretty full and we had people jumping up to offer us seats since we had little kids. I did not turn them down!

We decided to not take our stroller b/c it seemed like we ended up carrying the kids a lot anyway and they did not sleep in the stroller as much as I thought they would. We stopped and got our picture made on Main Street as we entered the park and then headed to the Barnstormer.

Penelope was tall enough to ride, but not Tate. Kai and I rode first. He liked it but was concerned that Penelope would probably be scared and wanted to warn her. Interesting how the differences in your kids comes out through different experiences. I didn't let him tell her anything about the ride. She was ready and rode with Michael. She loved it and even asked Michael when it was over why it was so short. Tiny daredevil. It felt hotter this day and so we visited some gift shops to try to stay cool and then met up with the rest of the crew for lunch.

Again, the parents disappear in the kids eyes when there are cousins and grandparents and fun aunts and uncles around. We met Tinkerbell and had some snacks and then headed back for some rest.

No where to sit but the floor on this bus ride back, but we made it work! 

The housekeeping staff arranged all the kids toys when they made up their beds. 

Can't get enough Mickey!!

When we got back to the park it looked like rain. We rode Buzz Lightyear one last time and then escaped the weather inside to eat dinner.

The final MUST SEE was meeting Anna and Elsa. The wait for this was long the whole time we were down there, but it was time to just take a deep breath and brave it or we were going to miss out. Penelope and I split from the group and we did have to wait over an hour, but it was more than worth it. They were amazing and she was just glowing.

Penelope picked this "Baby Elsa" doll as a treat from Nanna. Elsa asked her all kinds of questions about if she was making sure to keep her gloves on to keep her powers under control. Penelope was so serious. Precious.

She picked the Anna doll as her souvenir from us. Anna asked her if she was making sure to get enough chocolate. Such a sweetie.

Anna gave her a big kiss on her forehead. She was so proud of her lipstick mark. Ha!

We missed the nightly Wishes show b/c of the rain which was a bummer, but there's always next time!! ;-) An unbelievably special start to our summer.

This was the morning we were leaving to come back home. We had the lights and TV on and were talking, showering, getting dressed. The princess was sleeping HARD.

These are our sad faces b/c it is time to go home.

Regular summer days are going to seem boring after a week of this Disney magic! We will never forget this week.

DISNEY!! - Day 4

Day Four (Monday) - Hollywood Studios

We started off early again with another Character Breakfast. This time with the Disney Junior bunch. We met Doc McStuffins, Sofia the First, Handy Manny, and Jake. Again, not the best photo ops but a great experience for our little people. I was really so pleased with how well they did with all that we tackled.

Kai got to go to Jedi training and be a part of the Jedi Academy show. Very cool. So hot that morning, but this had to have been his favorite part of the trip.

Penelope and I broke away and went to meet Olaf.

Kai got to build his own light saber to bring home. We did the Star Tours ride (not the best for this motion sick prone momma) and the Toy Story ride which was a lot of fun.

Then it was time for us to get out of the sun for awhile so we headed back to the resort for lunch and nap. I woke Kai and Penelope up after a little bit so we could go to the pool again before heading back to the park. We went back to Hollywood Studios for the evening. We had dinner reservations and then reserved seats for the Fantasmic show at dark. A little hot and squirmy waiting for the show to start and probably a little bit scary for some of the kids, but glad we experienced it.

Can't believe tomorrow is already our last day here! Headed back to the Magic Kingdom.