Virginia Summer Begins

Well!  We arrived back to Virginia just in time to celebrate a very rainy 4th of July!  Fireworks were rained out, but we were really quite happy to just stay home and keep unwinding from our vacation!  LOL  

The brand-new mini-bats we got at the Slugger Museum made a great addition to our photo!

Red, white and blue dessert!

We had an awesome summer morning out in the yard with Eden over to play.  We hooked up the Slip 'n Slide for it's first go this summer, and they kids had such a fun time!

A little popsicle break!  Then we did held a toy/car wash.  While all of this fun playing was happening, I vacuumed all unwanted souvenirs from vacation out of the car, swept out, cleaned out and organized the garage and supervised the car washing.  I also convinced the kids it was a super fun idea to "paint" the porch with water, and they got it so much cleaner!  HA!

Well, summer is going to be a bit of a workout around here this summer... :/  The boys are living the saying of, "The days are long, but the years are short..."  They are up SO early, and the disagreements start just as early.  There will be a lot of breathing in and breathing out...  So, to celebrate surviving my first week of summer, we had a date night to go out kayaking!  It was lovely and the water felt so peaceful!

A morning visit to the Zoo, and we discovered a wonderful selection of temporary art pieces made completely out of trash taken out of bodies of water and beaches!

He's SO big...!!!

We always love a trip to the Zoo, but this one was a little bittersweet, because the Carrillos are our SECOND set of friends THIS SUMMER to leave us for Texas :(  It's a pretty great new adventure, though, and we are happy for them even though we'll miss having them close.

So well trained!!!

Cheesy photo op

The 4th of July is always a great start to summer tradition followed closely by FREE SLURPEE DAY on 7-11...

...and Cow Day at Chick fil a!!!

We had such a great time with our Super Cow costumes last year that we modified them just a smidge and used them again!

Those three faces are alarmingly cute... ;)

LOVE movie dates with this fella! 

Water beads keep us happy

Good friends take you to the beach and provide not only good conversation, but also friends to occupy your children and this view :)

Yay Beach! Boo Goodbyes :(

Our last full day--sad!  We spent the morning at the beach!  

Josh organized this awesome castle with some "helpers!"  ;)

After naps and quiet time, we headed back to the cool playground and sculpture area.  

After playing at the playground, we walked over to dinner and then took some silly pictures after!

Our last night of relaxing by the fire...

HA!  The rest of these pictures were taken by the kids as the adults ran around trying to pack up all of our things!

Penny champions again as all of this fit inside of her to head back to Evanston!

This house was incredible and so perfect for what we needed!  We would love to plan another trip back!  And, the time we got to focus on these special friends was priceless :)

Around Ludington...

Scott and Josh took the kiddos outside in the morning, and Brandi and I relaxed on the upstairs porch with our coffee--BFF Bliss :)  Scott headed back to IL in the early afternoon, Brandi did a grocery run, and these three made some friendship bracelets while the littles napped.  They were working on their quiet behavior to earn Movie Night later... ;)

 Our Parent Plan was simple: early dinner, movie night, bedtime!  LOL  We succeeded and the kids had a lot of fun :)

 Grown-up down time :)

 Sunday morning: My boys got in as many turns holding Molly as they could!

 They are quite the baby hogs!

 It was gray, drizzly weather, but Brandi and I loaded up her van anyways and headed into Ludington to explore and conduct our planned photo shoot!  Josh had gotten up obscenely early for some geocaching adventures!

 Jackson and Grahammers in Ludington

 Reward of playground time after pictures!

 The real reward: a treat from Kilwin's for being cooperative subjects!  I think they all picked chocolate covered rice krispie treats and Liam had jelly beans!  Graham did not want to participate in the photo...

 Josh beat us back to the house and got lunch started.  Our plan today was a big lunch, naps, and then packing snacky food and fruit to take to the beach!  Josh grilled us a delicious lunch of burgers and potatoes--it was so good!

 LOL  We got a lot of new beach toys at Dollar Tree this year, and this was the pattern one of our cool rolling tools made in the sand!

 Vacation Us :)

 Smiley Molly!

 The kids had SUCH a good time playing on the beach!

 A Wahoo-sighting on the beach!

 After our dinner picnic and changing the kiddos, we headed to the lighthouse!

 It was a bit windy walking along the walkway, but we made it in one piece!

 Heading back to the cars.  Needless to say the kiddos were pretty tired after our epic Dune day and then lots of playtime on the water today!

 Leftover pizza and wine by the fire--so fancy!

S'mores!