Our Summer AKA "The Blur", Part 2

After we got back from Hawaii, it took us a week or so to get adjusted back to Eastern time. The first few nights, the kids were up until after 10. I think the 2nd night back, they didn't go to sleep until after midnight!

We had a low key July 4th around Atlanta. It rained, actually. I opted to not run the Peachtree this year. Looking back I wish I would have because it would have been my 10th.

The Saturday after July 4th, the kids and I headed up to Pennsylvania to spend a week with my parents. The first night we were there, Charlotte got to stay up really late and have her first try at catching lightening bugs. I'm not sure how many she caught, but she had a lot of fun trying. Since we didn't get to see any fireworks on the 4th, we stayed up SUPER late to see the fireworks that the racetrack near my parents would fire. After a quick run through their neighborhood (when we realized they were starting and we couldn't see them), we had great found great seats on bleachers at a nearby baseball field. We had a wonderful summer night.

The next day we visited my parent's church (where the kids dutifully, without tears, went to the nursery). After church, my dad had the idea to go to the lake at Mt. Gretna. We had a great time there that afternoon. We swam, jumped off of docks, splashed, and played in the sand.



My mom watched the kids in the morning during the rest of the week while I worked. Then, we would usually do some sort of activity in the afternoon.

Even though the forecast wasn't great, we decided to head to Hershey Park on the Wednesday that we were there. It rained in the morning, and then towards lunch time it started to look really dark. We thought about not going, but that day was really the only chance we had left. So, we went for it - and we are SO happy we did.

It poured as we drove over to Hershey. It was pouring when we parked the car. It was 2 o'clock, we waited in the car for 10 minutes and it started to lighten up. So, we decided to go ahead and go into the park. We saw lots of REALLY wet people leaving as we were going in. Luckily for us, we didn't get rained on again. Everyone cleared out of the park, and we walked onto every ride we wanted to ride without waiting in any lines.

Max wasn't too sure about the rides at first, but then got really into it. Charlotte could hardly handle it. She wanted to ride anything and everything. She rode every roller coaster she was tall enough to ride. We ended up staying almost 6 hours!







We spent one afternoon with my Grandmother outside of Philadelphia. My sister and nephew, Jacob, came to visit us on Friday. We had a really nice day hanging out with them. We played at the park, played with toys, hung out and had a great time!



Sadly, the week had come to an end on Saturday and we had to board a plane home. Happily, though, we got to fly home and see Judd who celebrated his birthday that same day. We made him a root beer cake, drew pictures for him, and sung him a Happy Birthday.

At the end of July, I was lucky enough to head to Nashville to spend a weekend with some of my closest friends. We have known each other since freshman year of college and we still have a great time with each other. We did the usual - pedicures, eating out, and shopping. We also went to see the Grand 'Ol Opry, which was very fun. That weekend went by way to fast.

After that trip, my time was focused on getting Charlotte ready for her first big day of school. Summer was getting ready to come to an end for our little kindergartner.