Summer 2019

Summer sweet summer, where have you gone?  I can't even believe it's the middle of July already.  June was spent getting ready for Rachel's grad party and celebrating all of her friends too.  We enjoyed so many fun grad parties and of course all the yummy food.  So sad that I have to actually cook on the weekends, ha!

July 4th is one of our FAVORITE holidays.  On the third we went to my bil/sil's house to grill and enjoy some cocktails.  They were in the process of packing up the house as they bought a different house, but they still managed to host all of us!  We grilled and enjoyed fireworks later on in the evening.  Typically we walk uptown to enjoy all the festivities, but it's gotten SO huge that it's not that much fun anymore.

The 4th we headed uptown for the parade, the weather was a little iffy, but we thought we were in the clear.  Towards the end of the parade it down poured and we were all soaked.  Thankfully I got this pic right away!

It's so fun sitting at the parade because my mom and her husband and Brad's parents are there too.  I love seeing all of us there, such a fun tradition!

After getting soaked at the parade we made it home just in time for the rain to stop and the sun to come out.  Brad's family always comes over to swim and chill and eat.  One of my favorite traditions!

Everyone left around 8, so we cleaned up and chilled.  Rachel was working until 10, so we waited up for her then proceeded to stay up until 2.  Way too late for this mama, but we had such a fun time!

It was so nice to have a 4 day weekend, my company was closed on Friday and we really had no plans which was awesome.  We were completely lazy which was incredible after being non stop busy for months.

The next weekend we headed up to my dads for our Mineer "Christmas" which was a ton of fun!  We celebrated our 21st anniversary too with ice cream cake, my favorite!

It was such a nice time just hanging out and visiting with family.  

My dad and his friend Steve had a concert for us, it's always the highlight of the weekend!

Such a fun weekend, always so nice to get away from the day to day stuff!

So that's a little bit of what we've been up to.  I'm really wishing that summer would slow down, because that means we'll be taking Rach to college and I am NOT ready for that yet...

Red, White and Blue!

Wow, look at me all posting so much in a week!  I can't even begin to tell you how good it feels to have the last few months be over with!  Way too much stress and things on our plate.  Between doing major updates in the house (painting the main floor, carpet, new furniture), landscaping, Emma's accident and getting ready for Rachel's grad party, this has literally been Brad and I every night in June.

 I am believing that the rest of 2019 is going to be amazing!

And to get that off to an amazing start is my second favorite holiday, July 4th.  The 4th is always a super special day for Brad and I, as it is the day he proposed to me, at our local parade.  We were married on July 11, so July is always a special month for me.

I especially love all the red, white and blue decor.  I have a huge bin that I haul out every year and of course add more things.  

The only new thing I added this year was this tiered tray from Hobby Lobby which we used for the cupcakes a t Rachel's grad party.  I still need to tweak a few things, but love it!

We always head into our town on the 3rd for our church festival.  The festival started out very small, maybe a few hundred people and has grown to over 20,000 people now.  It's kind of sad though because we don't go up for long anymore as it's just too many people.

Back when we lived in town, we would have all of our friends come over for a fish fry on the 3rd and then we'd walk up town for all the festivities.  We would hire a babysitter to watch all the kiddos, some years there would be 8 kids!  I seriously don't know how we did it though.  Then we'd be up by 6:30 to start making a huge breakfast for everyone then walk up town for the parade.  We would be exhausted by the end of the day.  And that was with little kids!

Funny that the girls still love to go to the parade, that is one thing we'll never be able to give up!

Since we live outside of town, we don't have the 3rd festivities anymore, but we do have everyone over in the afternoon on the 4th for swimming and food!

We love finding new snacks and apps to make.  Rachel wants spinach artichoke dip this year and we'll have the meat and cheese tray again and rice krispy bars.  I'm loving all the red, white and blue charcuterie boards I'm seeing, so I might whip one of those up to!

Garvin and Co

When the girls were smaller, we enjoyed all the fun crafts...

Citronella candles

Uncle Sam faces

Cotton swab fireworks

I do miss doing these fun crafts, I can still get Alayna to make some stuff with me, which is great!

Hope you all have an AMAZING and safe 4th of July!!

Linking up with Kellyann