July 4

Friday afternoon, we spent in the driveway decorating our bikes and scooter for our neighborhood parade.  Well, I should really say that I decorated bikes and scooters while the boys rode around the cul-de-sac and played with our neighbor Teagan. Yes, that is Cash riding his bike in only Superman underwear.

We went inside to cool off and while Eli and Owen were quietly doing Pearler Beads, Cash was quietly sticking the beads up his nose.

Thankfully Blaine came to the rescue and we averted our plan to head to the doctor to get them removed.
Then we decided we were better off outside and had an epic water balloon fight.

Saturday morning was the neighborhood parade so we got our bikes and scooters and headed down to the start of the parade.

We had a great time, and saw lots of friends and neighbors.  We did not have any other plans made for 4th of July this year and Blaine was heading into work. I had anticipated a hot day full of boredom, breaking up fights and toys thrown all around the house.  

But low and behold, we ended up having a super fun day at home! We decided we were going to make if fun ourselves! I think this may be one of my all time favorite pictures that captures the day perfectly.

Our neighbor's granddaughter moved in with them a few months back and the boys just adore her! She loves the boys back just as much and she comes over a lot to play or we go next door to swim.  That afternoon she came over and played with the boys most of the day, or I should say, told them what to do and they obeyed.

 After another water balloon fight, playing in the hose, and a game of hide and seek all around the cul-de-sac we went next door for a swim with her family. I pulled them away for dinner when it started to get late so we could head back out later for pop-its (about 300 of them!) and some sparklers.

It was nothing fancy, or even that special but we all had so much fun together spending the day outside and enjoying each other.  At the end of the day, Eli told me that he had such a great day. That is what you want to hear after a day like that!

Port A 2015 In The Books!

We kicked off our annual Port A beach trip earlier in the summer than normal this year.  We decided to try out a different house on a different part of the beach this year--yeah, it was a bad idea.

Everyone got to the house before we did and I could tell in their voices that the house was not so great and not exactly what we expected.  Just by pulling in the driveway, I could tell that they were right.  It was not terrible, it was still a very nice house, but there was construction surrounding the house,  the bottom floor of the house was not connected to the house--you had to go outside to get to and from the "suite" on the bottom floor, there was not direct beach access, and it was, in general, a little bit of false advertising in the posting.
Ethan and I went straight to the leasing office and checked out another house that we could move to and expressed our frustrations with the house.  The owner was very apologetic and offered to give us a full refund if we wanted out.  In the end, we decided to stay at the house (with a 20% refund) because a lot of the food was already unpacked and the main living/kitchen area was still a great area for us all to hang out in.
The bed situation was tricky and we played musical beds just about every night looking for the right rooms/beds for everyone. I can not say that anyone slept well on this trip.

We ended up in a small room with a bunk bed and a trundle bed--but if the trundle was pulled out the door could not be opened or closed, so we pulled the bunk and trundle mattresses out and made a huge palette on the floor of our room for the boys. We basically could not walk in the room because mattresses covered the floor.

The first afternoon we stayed in and cooked and settled in.  Friday morning all the guys were going out on a fishing boat to fish for the whole day and they woke up before 6 to make it there.  Of course, we were all up too when Blaine's alarm went off, so off to the beach we went!

Cash had blood drawn, and a barrage of other tests the day before for his stomach issues, and he refused to take off his little band aid from the blood draw. It was not until we were in the pool later that day that we ripped it off when he wasn't all looking!
We had the beach to ourselves--I guess that is what happens when you get out there in the 6am hour. We collected shells, ran around and even found 3 sand dollars!

We headed back to the house and had breakfast with all the girls--Rachel and Lola, my mom, Aunt Carol and her friend Sharon who joined us this year.  We had a really fun morning of sitting around and chatting, and then headed to the beach and the pool.

We even ran into Jonah and the boys played for a just a few minutes before they headed back up to their condo.

The boys got back pretty late in the afternoon, showered up, rested for a few minutes, and then we all headed to Finn's Restaurant so they could cook up all the yummy fish the guys caught that morning.

We had a delicious dinner all sitting together.  These moments are the moments my dad lives for.
The rest of the trip we did more of the same....waking up super early, heading to the beach, then to the pool, drinking margaritas, eating, running on the beach, eating too much, and hanging out together.

Cash all of a sudden this summer decided that he was ready to full on swim.  In the ocean he would dive into a wave, and start swimming--kicking so hard and using his arms....of course he didn't go anywhere because of the current but he did it over and over again.  Dive in, swim, and stand up in the same place!  He took it very seriously and he loved it.

On our last night there we had plans to go crab hunting and meet up with Becca and Jonah and Wes down at the beach.  The boys just ran around together until it got dark...and Cash decided to swim...again.

They  had so much fun and caught tons and tons of little white crabs!

Monday morning we were all hustling around getting packed and cleaned up to get ready to head back home.  Of course we had to make a stop to the souvenir shops before we left town so they could each pick out one thing.

Another fun Port A trip in the books!