Summer Days Part 3

Wow, I guess I took a little unintentional blog break! Our summer has been super fun and super busy so far and I just can’t believe how quickly it’s flying by!!

Last week my brother in law, sister in law and their 3 boys came to visit {they live an hour away} and the WHOLE family went out on my Father in law’s boat. We have a fave beach we like to anchor at, it’s awesome because not too many people go there so you always feel like you have the whole beach to yourselves! The kids can search for all kinds of crabs and sea creatures, they can swim in the surf, they can dig in the sand … it’s always a super fun time!

 

 

My brother in law and my youngest nephew …

My nephews are addicted to football!

The kids had a blast swimming together.

Love those happy smiles!!

There really weren’t any waves that day but they still have fun on their boogie boards.

Another football lover …

Just floatin’ around, I love the one with the cousins sitting on the tube together, I picture them chatting about all kinds of things … the 2 on the tube are about 3 months apart in age and have always been good friends.

My nephew is having a birthday real soon so he opened a couple gifts at the beach and Grandma made her famous Chocolate Rice Krispy squares for everyone to enjoy. =)

 

My sweet girls with little creatures in their buckets … {they are NOT afraid of picking up crabs and such!}

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this picture! It is SO hard and SO rare to get a good one of all 5 kids but somehow I managed and I just love it!

 

My father in law took all 5 kids out to go tubing behind the boat and oh my goodness, those kids had a BLAST!! You should have seen the grins on their faces!

I know it’s really blurry because it was pretty far away, but here is a Submarine coming in, it’s SO cool to live where we do and see this kind of thing fairly regularly! I am always a bit tearful and full of emotion when I see this because I know it’s someone’s Daddy and Husband who is coming home from months at sea! SO thankful for those who serve our country!!

The kids had fun jumping off the front of the boat ….

I love this picture of my Father in law and his youngest Grandson! So precious!!!

Here are the Mamas … My sis in law, my Mom in law and myself …

Beautiful sailboats out on the water ….

And on the way home on the boat, we took a couple more pictures ….

After the beach everyone came back to our house. The kids swam in the pool and we had a BBQ with chicken, fresh fish, clam chowder, corn on the cob, etc… It’s so nice to have a wonderful family and we really enjoy spending time with them!

 

And I just wanted to include this one last photo … I LOVE hydrangeas and am so happy mine have bloomed enough so I could bring a few blooms inside … they look so pretty and bring a smile to my face every time I see them!

Mini Summer Vacay

On Saturday morning we got up SUPER early to head back to New Hampshire to pick up our sweet girly. We were SO excited to see her and both her Daddy and I got a little teary-eyed when we hugged her!

Since we were already up north and so close to the mountains we love, we decided to make a little mini-vacation out of it. We drove a little farther north to the White Mountains and had a fantastic couple of days together!

It's kinda cool when your kids have been apart for a week .... because when they get back together again they actually GET ALONG for a few days! They missed each other and had a really nice time playing together again!

We did a whole lotta relaxing and having fun together. We found a couple neat rivers where we could just float in our tubes and swim and explore. The first one we went to had a neat sandy beach and a beautiful old covered bridge over head. There was a decent current and we would walk up the river to a part with a small rapid, put our tubes in and float down a while, then jump out and do it all over again.

The hotel we stayed at is awesome ... one of our faves for sure. When we walked out our room, this was our view! Long, rolling hills, the outdoor pool area, and the gorgeous mountains in the distance! They have both outdoor and indoor pools, a small mini golf course and activities for kids and families during the summer. They give the kids free popsicles at the pool, a campfire with smores at night, family movie nights, horse-drawn carriage rides, etc... They also have a HUGE free breakfast buffet. We had a great time!

Another day we went to a different river that has all kinds of waterfalls and rocks and pools of water. It's a really neat place {although when the kids were little it used to scare me cause it can be dangerous too, the rocks get really slippery!}. We did more floating there, and my brave girls followed Daddy doing all sorts of {scary!} things like jumping off rocks and sliding down a natural waterslide ...

We spent the late afternoons lounging by the pool while the girls swam and played. Later that night we headed out to dinner {The Margarita Grill - delish!} and took a drive up to the top of a really awesome cliff. I love the mountain views from up there, simply breathtaking!

We were supposed to head home the following morning, but made a spontaneous decision to stay an extra day. And for our last day we surprised the girls by taking them to a really cool waterpark. We were lucky to go on a day when the park was very empty and we felt like we had the place to ourselves. We rarely waited in any lines and all four of us had a BLAST!

By the end of the day we were fully waterlogged, sunburned and absolutely EXHAUSTED! We went back to our hotel, had some pizza for dinner and all fell asleep early!

The last morning, as we headed out of town, we drove past Clark's Trading Post where they have these amazing bears. I think they do shows with the bears, but we just stood outside the gates and took some neat pictures.

We had such a great time. It was so fun to reconnect with our oldest daughter and hear all her stories about camp. It was wonderful to 'disconnect' from regular life, electronics and all that stuff for a few days. Sorta makes me wanna do it for the rest of summer!