Summer is busy!

Phew.

Summer is busy.

It's good busy though. I have a few minutes to update the blog, so I figured I would do a quick "this is what we've been up to" update.

Let's see...we just celebrated July 4th. We started the long weekend with a trip to see the Frederick Keys play. The game was fun, and the kids did a great job (for their first ball game). Jack ate his weight in French fries and Lily thoroughly enjoyed popcorn. There was a carousel for the kids, and they rode that twice. There was also one of those long slides that you usually find in places like Pump It Up. Lily really wanted to go down it, so we got her a ticket and she climbed the whole thing by herself and then came down on her own. The coming down was more of falling and tumbling down the slide, but she did it...and wanted to do it again. The second time she did a much better job coming down. She told us the first time she didn't really sit, but the second time she did. Silly girl! After the game they had fireworks, which were awesome. They were really loud, which scared Jack a bit, but Lily was mesmerized.

The next day was the 4th of July. We got up early and went to the Dundalk Heritage Parade. The weather held until the last 10 minutes of the parade, when it started to rain. The kids were troopers, though, and did a great job with the parade and the rain. We got home and relaxed for a while before heading to the Catonsville parade. We are within walking distance to the parade, so we walked and the kids fell asleep. They slept through the fire engines (shocking!) and then proceeded to sleep through basically the entire parade. Tom and I enjoyed a peaceful viewing of the parade, which was very nice. After eating dinner with my parents (ribs, corn, and potato salad...yummy!) we headed to the fireworks. Tired Jackson fell asleep mid-fireworks, but Lily made it through the whole show. She was very excited that she didn't need to cover her ears. All-in-all we had a very nice 4th of July.

Sunday we caught up with some friends at the family shore house. We played outside, went fishing, and had a delicious lunch. In the evening we got together with our friend, Mike, to watch the US women defeat Japan in soccer. The game was awesome!

Monday, our friend Mindi stayed over because she was headed to Hawaii and was leaving from BWI. We got to catch up and have dinner together. In the words of Lily she "had a sleepover" and then Tom took her to BWI Tuesday morning for her flight.

We have been getting in daily walks, which has been very nice. I have been experimenting with some different recipes, which has been fun. I love that I have more time to cook in the summer! We are going to be equally busy in the coming weeks as we've been for the past few. We are really trying to do new things and enjoy the summer. Having the time off with the kids has been great!