Fourth of July Mini-Vacation

John doesn't get much vacation with his new job, so we have to take advantage of every opportunity that he has a day off. So, we decided to head to Myrtle Beach for the fourth. My parents joined us and we had a great time. I was really worried that the beach would be so crowded that we wouldn't be able to walk, but it really wasn't all that bad and the condos we stayed at had several pools and 2 lazy rivers for the kids.

Austin and Jacob LOVE the beach. They woke up each morning and would both run to the window and say "Look...the beach...come see," almost as if they were seeing it for the first time. It was cute. They spent most of their time digging in the sand. They seemed to be more interested in the sand and water than anything else. In fact, when we were out on the beach watching the fireworks, they were playing in the sand and running back and forth to the water. Every once in a while they would stop and look at the fireworks but the fireworks definitely weren't the focus of their attention.

My mom and I spent some quality time at the outlets having a much needed shopping break :). My wonderful husband and father had a ton of patience with us (and the kids) and volunteered to take the kids to a movie while my mom and I continued our shopping extravaganza.

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Summer Excitement

I can't believe that the summer is nearly halfway over. The boys have been having a blast going to the water park, spending time at Grammie and Grandad's house, going to camp (Austin), and going to gymnastics (Jacob).

It has been super hot here. Maybe it's because I spent the past 6 summers in Colorado (where even though the days are really hot, the nights are cool) that the heat in NC seems unbearable. You don't realize how bad the humidity is until you are away from it for awhile and then return. I remember growing up in NC, I would have friends from other areas who would say "how can you possibly live there....it is SO hot." It never seemed that bad to me. Now I understand where they are coming from. John is slowly adjusting to never getting completely dry when you get out of the shower and not being able to open the windows at night to enjoy the "coolness" of the night.

The boys and I stay cool by spending about three days a week at the water park. We usually meet my sister in law and nephew there and sometimes I rope my mom into coming as well. There are tons of great kids' slides for the boys and they both are very comfortable in the water. Jacob is our daredevil (who incidentally doesn't know how to swim) and Austin is our more cautious one (who does know how to swim).











Ready for a day at the water park


Supposedly we are in a drought but it seems that whenever we do get rain, we get a bad storm. On several occasions it has hailed almost like some of the hail storms we would see when we lived in Colorado. When it rains hard, our backyard turns into a small creek.










Black ice?!? Nope..just a hail storm


This past week, Austin officially became "snaggle tooth." Yes...he lost his first tooth. He was at camp a little over a week ago and got hit in the mouth. Something about a rubber snake and two kids were pulling on it and he fell back or something. At any rate, at the end of the incident, his tooth was loose.
After a week of wiggling, the tooth came out. Of course, Austin was adamant that he get it under his pillow right away for the tooth fairy (we never told him about the tooth fairy....must be a preschool learning activity :) ). The next morning Austin was super excited about the dollar the tooth fairy left him. Jacob came running in saying "The tooth fairy took Austin's tooth. Oh no...he forgot his money." Apparently he didn't completely understand the whole tooth fairy thing. Luckily he has a couple of years to master the concept.

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