4th of July Vacation

Our 4th of July vacation at the river once again proved to be a wonderful mix of patriotic kid-filled excitement mixed with lots of quiet, peaceful moments that only this little slice of heaven can provide.

We kicked off the trip on Wednesday afternoon with the 3-hour car ride to our friend's beautiful vacation home on the St. John's River. Parker was asleep about 5 minutes into the car ride and took a nice long nap, while Payton stayed busy with books, games and a very dirty (e.g. potty words) version of Mad Libs. Needless to say, the drive went very quickly.

The minute we arrived, we let the kids run out on to the beautiful wooden dock that overlooks nothing but the serene beauty of the river with lush nature preserve as the backdrop.

Oh... and we may have cracked open our first celebratory 4ht of July beer while we were out there as well...

The weekend was jam-packed with boating, tubing, playing at the sandbar, and even a special ride on some of the neighbor's wave runners!

One, two, three... jump!

Parker taking a pretend tube ride on our friend's back.

My little boat lover.

The big kids loved tubing!

One of many awesome family moments.

Two peas in a pod!

Parker going for his first wave runner ride. He LOVED it!

Then it was big brother's turn. He also had a fabulous time. Sorry for the "behind" shot.

And when we weren't out on the boat, we were enjoying some good ol fashioned fun like:

Red Neck Golf...

Turns out Payton is quite good at it!

 Fishing off the dock and watching all the beautiful wildlife...

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 Eating watermelon, homemade ice cream, home made strawberry shortcake, and just about every other traditional American food you can imagine...

 And real, skillet fried bacon. Lots of bacon...

 And some great cuddle time with my little guy...

On the actual 4th of July, we had planned to go to a huge fireworks show, but as most Floridians experienced, it was cancelled due to rain.

So we created our own version of kid-friendly fireworks using sparklers, Morning Glories and glow bracelets. The kids had a ball!

We were all decked out with patriotic tatoos.

Sparklers never disappoint!

 

  All was well and good until I insisted that Parker hold a sparkler with all the kids for a "cute" picture. Umm...apparently he's not such a fan of sparklers. He screamed bloody murder and then insisted on going inside.

Not my best parenting moment.

So, I took him inside, gave him a nice long hot bath and put him in his cute 4th of July jammies.

All was forgiven. :)

On Friday afternoon, he headed back to Tampa. And little man was so tired, he slept almost the entire car ride (thank God).

We were welcomed home by a very happy little bunny who missed his rambunctious family...I'm sure of it. She's been super affectionate since we got home, so I think she missed us.

 

We had a fantastic 4th of July vacation and we are so grateful to our amazing, generous friends who make these kinds of trips possible. Thank you so much!!

Hope everyone else had a great 4th too!

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I'm taking the kids on another mini vacation this week, while Brian mans the fort at home. So, this is likely my only post for the week. 

However, I have some fun ideas cookin' for later this month including:

• A new "Favorite Things" list
• A couple new super easy recipes for the summer including my favorite roasted asparagus with Parmesan
• A "How To" guide to setting up a successful lemonade stand for your kiddos

So, stayed tuned!