Fourth of July!

We planned our trip to Iowa so we were there to celebrate Fourth of July!  It's always a fun holiday to celebrate there - lots of family and fireworks over the lake!

We wore our best Fourth of July outfits for the day!

There has to be food at a July 4th celebration!  I helped Aunt Vicki put together the vegetable platter and Dad make a cake (and Mom helped decorate it)!

What is more 4th of July than eating watermelon in a watermelon swimsuit!?

Aunt Noreen came into town for the day!  We checked out the town celebration at the park and even tried our hand at a water balloon toss competition!  (We didn't win...)

Owen and Mom captured a patriotic picture on the lake!

And I posed for my own patriotic pictures!  We should have gotten Jessie a red collar...

I think we're getting close to the last time for these pictures!  Especially Owen...

And of course our family photo in front of the lake!

The lake is beautiful when the sun is setting!  Perfect for fireworks!

We headed to the dock to wait for them to start!

I found my seat with Dad and Owen found a floating dock to sit on by himself!

Guess who else liked the fireworks?!  Well, maybe not liked...but she definitely didn't mind the lights or the noise!  She hung out for the whole show!

It was a great show!

Road Trip!

Over the summer, we took the road trip of all road trips and drove from Atlanta to Emmetsburg to visit Grandma Pam and Grandpa Mike!  We packed up the car with us, Jessie and bikes and drove/rode 19 1/2 hours to get there!  The drive was worth it though because we stayed for almost two weeks...  One good thing to come out of Covid was that we had the opportunity to take this trip since Mom and Dad could still work from Iowa.  We all had a chance to explore the town, spend time with family, and relax!

Everyone was ready to hit the road!  Even Jessie was smiling!

It was fun staying in a hotel with Jessie!

There wasn't much time for sight seeing on the way, but we saw The Gateway Arch in St. Louis from a distance and stopped for lunch in Iowa City where the University of Iowa is located!

Once we got there we had lots of time with Grandma and Grandpa doing fun things like checking out a BB gun and making cookies!

We spent quite a bit of time outside during our visit!  Checking out playgrounds and corn fields!

It was really good that we brought our bikes - we rode them all over!  Even to the grocery store!

A neighbor lent us another set of wheels to play with during our visit!

We played lots of game!  Chess was a favorite of ours!

And of course, Uno!  Owen really like Trivia Pursuit.  It was the family version so there were kid questions, too.  Good thing because some of the grown ups needed those a few times!

In our quiet time, we wrote in our journals and drew some pictures!

Jessie didn't have trouble settling in and relaxing!

Grandpa Mike took us to a nature center that had some outdoor instruments!

The boys went golfing one day and us girls rode along with them!

No holes in one but everyone had a fun time!

Another fun place that we found was the library - they had some fun toys in the children's corner! We didn't get to spend enough time there so definitely will have to go back next visit!

And of course we spent lots of time in the lake!  We swam in it from the beach and from the docks!  Mom took us out in kayaks, too!

The most fun though was the neighbor's lily pad!  We ran, wrestled, did flips, did cartwheels and laid on it!

Oh and jumped off the dock onto it (or over it)!

Unfortunately no boat outings this trip - the water was just too low!

One other place we found some water to swim in was the community center pool!  Owen passed a swim test that included treading water so he was allowed to use the diving board!