4th of July Family Time

With Nick leaving for the Army, Don's family decided to come to NC so he could have a big send off...Richard and Joan from CA, Gregg and Jack from MN.  It also happened to be the 4th of July week.  While Don and Nick headed to the airport to pick up Richard and Joan, Gregg and the boys and I headed to the local Waxhaw 4th of July parade.  It was a gorgeous day, perfect weather for a parade, not too hot especially for NC.

 

 

We decided to have an impromptu cookout and invited some neighbors over and my Mom and Terry. We pulled a couple extra burgers out of the freezer and we had a party including sparklers for the kids.

 

A neighbor down the street had gotten fireworks to shoot off, so that meant we didn't have to drive downtown to watch them. They put on a great show but about 1/2 through, the heavens opened up and the rain came down, we waited for what seemed like forever for the rain to stop to resume the show!  But it had been a long day and we weren't sure if it would pass so we headed home quickly in between the raindrops.

Happy Independence Day America!

Litchfield Beach is Heaven

We wanted to take one last trip with Nick before heading off to the Army.  So we packed up 4 boys, 4 boogie boards, one skimmer board, buckets, shovels, a kite and 2 cars and Don and I headed to Litchfield beach. I had a closing on a house at noon and don got off work early so by 2pm we were headed to the beach for a long weekend.  My favorite, favorite place to be!

Nick's friend Nick came with us.  The weather forecast looked gloomy for our long weekend but we were pleasantly surprised by how beautiful it turned out to be!  Our arrival night we had homemade spaghetti and meatballs and then headed to the small pool in our condo complex.  The next morning we awoke to gorgeous sunny skies.  We headed to the beach.  It was a short walk and we enjoyed the beautiful landscaping, flowers, tropical trees and wildlife. Frisbee, boogie boarding, skimming and just plain relaxing.

 

 

 

There is a great pool area with a lazy river and an area for the kids. Nick and Nick spent their time going round and round on the lazy river.

 

The next was slightly overcast but the sun did come out later in the morning.  It was the perfect day for building in the sand. Ryan was fascinated with burying his legs in the sand.  Nick #2 built a fort.

 

Ryan and Justin had a great time boogie boarding.  The picture below shows Ryan catching a big wave which turned him upside and he took a tumble and scrapped his face in the sand.  Scary but he got back in after taking a rest and wasn't going to let that stop his fun.

 

A beach trip isn't complete without mini golf and ice cream!  Well, we had ice cream at least 3 times but I have no pictures because I was too busy eating.

 

The morning we were leaving Justin, Ryan and I decided to take one last walk down to the beach but we never made it because of the rain....just a great trip!

 

Ryan's Last Meet

Ryan and his best bud, Alex joined a newly formed Track team in our town.  They could choose long distance or sprints.  Ryan and Alex decided that sprints are the way to go.  And I have to admit Ryan is pretty fast, when he is not looking around at who is behind him!  He had his last track meet of the season, 2 of them were rained out.  The season was cut short by the amount of rain that we received.  I don't know how many practices were rained out, really thunder and lightening were the cause for the cancellation.  He did so well and cant wait until next year.

Ahhh....so much going on...no time to blog!

We have been super busy and I haven't had time to catch up with my blogging....please stay tuned, more to come.....