We had a fun 4th of July weekend - playing around in the backyard, a visit to Grandma & Troy's river camp, and the parade in Edgewood followed by a grill-out at Uncle John & Aunt Terri's house. We had just gotten back from our beach vaca so I was especially grateful for a long weekend to recoup.
The kids had a lot of fun at Grandma & Troy's river camp. Max especially liked walking along the river bank, splashing around. He kept wading way too far in, though, and ended up with wet shorts. He was going out further and further until we had to say water time was over and head back up the hill.
They had lots of fun with Aunt Amy! Max got to do sparklers (I believe that was a first for him) but Lucy chickened out (though she's done them before).
The next day, we went to the Edgewood parade - so many times in past years, the 4th has been a rainy day so we were extra excited for great weather!
The next weekend, the kids and I headed to the zoo to try to meet Fiona. She wasn't out but we still had a great time. That night we all went to my cousin Karen's wedding - she got married outside but the reception was indoors, though we didn't have much luck getting the kids to head in - they had so much fun playing together and with other cousins!
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| Selfie! |
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| Lucy took this pic (and about 87 others, most of which I deleted because they were of things like the bathroom sinks...) |
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| Notice Lukey playing with a tractor in the background :) |
Other July fun included gymnastics class for Max, celebrating Daddy's birthday, rock painting and outdoor adventures.
Lucy had been taking gymnastics at a place in Alexandria called Skip & Flip and Max and I often took her to class. He liked watching her but was itching to get out there and try it out himself. I finally signed him up for a class with kids his age and he loved it!
He was a fearless little gymnast and often surprised his teacher with his willingness to try new things. He sadly only got to take a few classes before the gym decided to shut down but he loved every moment of it.
For Dave's birthday, the kids continued their tradition of shopping for the perfect gifts from the Dollar Tree.
Lucy got him a Gatorade, some candy and a twin pack of mini bug catches - so she could catch lightning bugs with her dad.
Max got him a full sized broom - yep, they have those at the Dollar Tree and of course my broom-lovin' boy couldn't pass it up. He also got him a water shooter.
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| Wrapping up the gifts! |
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| Making a birthday card! |
The made him a cake, too, of course!
Once they were sufficiently hopped up on sugar from the sprinkles and icing, we took Daddy to play some putt-putt where Max did some epic cheating.
We worked up an appetite so we went to BW3 for some dinner:
After dinner, we headed home to sing "Happy Birthday" and to dig into that beautiful birthday cake!
So painting rocks is a thing. A big thing. My cousin Amy was the first person to encourage us to do it...I'd seen a bit about it on Facebook and Lucy and I actually found a painted rock once (in a tree at the library) but didn't know what it was all about so we left it there. Amy told us more about it - that you paint rocks and then tag them with the group name - NKY Hidden Rocks - on the back and then hide them. If you find a rock, you are allowed to keep it (but you should hide another one to make up for it) or you can re-hide it somewhere else. She planted one for Lucy at Dave's softball game to give her first official find and we've been painting, hiding and hunting ever since!
Here are the first two we painted - and then later hid, at President's Park when we were visiting with friends:
Max's style is to paint a bunch of rocks the same color...once dry, I usually add to them to transform them a bit.
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| Hard to see in this pic - it's a very small rock - but this was one of Max's brown rocks I tried to transform him into the poo emoji per Lucy's request and then she hid it at the bakery at the top of our street |
More outdoor fun - at the nature trail across the street. One night we took some bread to feed to the fish in the pond.
Cruisin' around at GranJan & Grandpa's house
YMCA fun!
We visited Grandma & Troy at their river camp again and this time, we spent the night. Lucy was excited to sleep in the tent with Dad and Max said he was, too...but when it came time for bed, he wanted to be inside the camper with Mommy!
