Summer Travel Part 2

This summer instead of one long trip we made two shorter trips (well, time shorter not mileage- 1900 and 2000 miles). We were very sad to not make it out to Texas this year but can't wait for the Cole's to come here! We spent 4th of July at Grandma's house. It was great to see family, enjoy yummy treats like "ice cream sandwiches" (frozen graham crackers with pudding.)  K shot his 22 some more. James went to see Great Grandma. We went to another Blue Star Museum- Greensboro Children's Museum which was really nice. What a blessing to be able to go to some great museums for free as a thank you for James' being in the military!

A little dental practice before K gets his real braces next week!

We were also blessed by two nice days of swimming. We went to a public pool near Grandma's and paid for one day. K and C had a blast jumping off the diving board and KG and T loved the Tot slides. As we were leaving, they closed the pool because it looked like rain so we got a raincheck and went back the next day to swim! Thank you God for another blessing!

Grandma and Uncle Brian went with us to enjoy the 4th of July parade- tons of old timey cars, lots of candy- a fun morning!

And James and I got to go out to lunch- my first time at P F Changs. It was really good! We finished out our 4th of July with "day time fireworks" like Mount Vernon's 4th celebration.

On Thursday, the kids and I drove to Fayetteville while James headed to Fort Knox for 10 days of Army work. We enjoyed getting to see lots of our forever friends in Fayetteville. swimming, popsicles, pizza & brownies, and lots of great catching up. It is so good to be able to spend time with those super close friends that you know will always love you no matter how far away you move!

KG couldn't wait to see her "best friend" and girl costumes too!

 On Friday, we drove to Madison. The kids were so excited to see Nana and Papa. It was a short but fun trip.  Friday night pizza and movie night!  We watched part of Mary Poppins. Then Saturday we went to another Blue Star Museum- the Tallahassee museum. The kids loved seeing all the animals- panthers, alligators, lemurs, ...

T thinking about touching white oak rat snake

the swing was a little bit more crowded than our last visit- 6 years ago

 We were amazed to not get any bug bites since our car filled with mosquitos when we opened the door there. Another great outing! That night we went out to the Sellers for dinner- hotdogs, homemade burgers, baked beans, watermelon, trifle. The kids thought it was a perfect meal! and great to see old friends and meet some new ones (the cute little girls!)  After church Sunday, we got to have lunch with Kevin and Enid and then headed to the pool. K and C are doing great swimming and T and KG love the water and like splashing around. So thankful for a nice pool on a hot day!

On Monday, we returned to Fayetteville. Well, most of us did. C quickly helped me pack the last things in the car to help the rest of us get on the road. He's been waiting for 6 months since his birthday for his time by himself at Nana and Papa's house. We got to see some more friends, pizza, ice cream, sparklers,    another great day!

This felt just like old times- like almost every day the last couple summers. how we miss our friends!! 

We headed back to Baltimore Tuesday with mixed emotions. We'd had such good visits with friends and family that we hated for it to end. But we have lots to look forward to here in Baltimore too. We stopped at Mount Vernon on the way home- we've really enjoyed our annual pass there this year. We've had some long visits and some short visits there and enjoyed each one.

I was glad we drove home on Tuesday because along the drive I remembered that we had almost no food at our house in Baltimore. (The power was out for several days before we left so we took our food to James' work. So many things to be thankful for over those power outage days- good neighbors, a working generator, a fan, ...) I also remembered Tuesday is Kids eat free night at Ikea. A nice end to a super trip!