Fourth of July...A Week Later

Continuing my recent trend of posting a full week after events take place, I'm finally getting around to our very busy, very happy 4th of July weekend in the QC. Hoping to turn that trend around as I have FINALLY watched all five seasons of Scandal and now have to wait patiently for the fall debut to get my Olive Pope fix.

Our weekend in Moline was fantastic! We missed the “Other Brandis,” who were on a fabulous summer trip, but still had a ton of fun. Tim and Rebecca hosted us out on the boat on Saturday. The temperature was cool, but that didn’t stop Lainey from swimming almost non-stop. Nick took a few dips in the water and enjoyed tooling around in the kayak, but he was mostly into sand play. And then this happened…

He was shocked, but fine—and, yes, we’ve watched that video about 1,000 times. Sadly, my first thought when he face-plowed through the sand was not necessarily for his overall well-being, but rather “not the face!,” because we our good friend Josh Ford was lined up for a family photo shoot the next morning. Luckily the sand was very soft, so it just moved right along with Nick’s face—no marks! What the video leaves out is Mark’s warnings that this was not going to end well, while the rest of us encouraged him to the top. In fairness, I did call out for him to turn around half-way up (but, then said—eh, let him try it!)

Happier times on the kayak

Saturday night we did the final celebration of Lainey’s birthday—this time with a Hello, Kitty cake. After cake and presents, Grandpa dazzled the crew with some fireworks and sparklers. Nick was not so keen on the noise, so Uncle Tim hooked him up with some ear protectors. The picture does not do justice to how adorable he was.

Sunday we did our photos with Josh. The weather was perfect and the kids cooperated very well, so it was a quick and painless process. Lainey even asked if she could take pictures with Josh forever! (Check out a little of his magic at the very bottom of this post!) That night it was off to the fireworks. Another very cool evening, but we didn’t mind—no bugs! The kids loved all the fun glow necklaces and bracelets that Grandma brought (and all the gummy worms and butterflies that Grandpa brought.) Everyone enjoyed the show and Nick didn’t even ask to wear his ear protectors until the finale.

A fun weekend that, as always, went too fast! And now we prepare to tackle the rest of our very busy summer…we are officially booked every Saturday until September 17!!! YIKES!!! So, perhaps even with my hiatus from Scandal, I’ll still be modeling this blog after John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight.