4th of July Week

When you live in one of the most picturesque Americana towns in the USA, the 4th of July is a big deal.  We always love spending the 4th going to the parade in Lake Bluff, and then the fireworks festival in Lake Forest.  This year we all walked in the parade with Matt's realty office, Berkshire Hathaway.  It was a really hot day, so the kids and I only made it partially through walking the parade route handing out candy before we ducked out to join our friends on their blankets with a cool drink and some shade!  Such a fun day.

We also enjoyed some awesome family time with Jenae, Jeremy, River and Lennon in town from Colorado.  Always a good excuse to see Justin, Sara, Orrin, Lila and Aunt Diane and Uncle Garry too!  They really enjoyed the new lake house - Lennon especially is a little water bug!

This past weekend we hosted our big Beach Party with all of our local besties.  It was a perfect summer evening, we really lucked out.  It was such a blast!

I ended up taking off the whole week from work as long as I already had two days off for the holiday, so in addition to all of the family and social activities planned, we had some nice staycation time together as well.  Quite a wonderful week - and this is only half of it!

My captions are going backwards here, but I started this past week in late June on a business trip to Miami.  Not a bad place to be at a Marketing Leadership Meeting for a few days!  This ends a stretch of a few months of pretty heavy work travel, and I am not sorry to say Adios to all those work trips and stay home with my babies more!

View from my hotel room in Miami

I could see the ocean while lying on my bed (working on my laptop on a conference call in the middle of the day, but still, not bad!)

really neat restaurant the group went to one night

Drinks were served with these funny contraptions, like this spigot!

While in Miami I met up with my dear college friend, Gui, and his boyfriend Steve one night after work finished.  I hadn't seen Gui in sooooo long, but he is the kindest, most wonderful person, as is Steve, so we had a fantastic evening together eating tapas and enjoying the warm Miami air.

5:30 am sunrise yoga on the beach compliments of Abbott!  Meetings start at 7am!

Pool area

I came home from FL on Friday afternoon and then headed straight up to the lake house to meet up with another dear old friend, Andrea!  Scheduling is always so hard (they have 5 kids!!), but Andrea and Kevin found time to come down to see the new lake house and have dinner with Matt and I.

Reunited and it feels so good!

Beautiful red moon that night.  We stayed up at the lake.

On Saturday we headed back down to Lake Forest to have a boat day with our friends the Cohen's.

The sand bar was hopping that beautiful June day, so we met other friends also anchored there for the afternoon.

That night was our Beach Bash.  Here are the ladies!

The whole group of hosts!

I was in charge of all this beach decor for the picnic tables.

Cheers to the beach life!

We strung all these lights, it looked fab

Lisa and Steve brought these tiki torches to light up the beach a bit more.  Otherwise it was pitch black!

Flippy cup is always a good idea

Clean up at the end of the night was easier for some than others.  Doug was hilarious.

Chris doing more dancing than cleaning up at some points.

Lord of the flame.

Post-party pool party the next day with the host families to eat all the leftover food and drink all the leftover beer!

These kids were kind of pooped by the next day, Monday and I don't blame them!

Relaxing morning with no work and nothing but fun ahead of us.

park time while Luke had camp

Lamb's Farm visit - Claire loves the cats there.

Mini golf fun

Trying the knee board out that Dad got used 

He did awesome!

Swimming in the deep water off of the boat, this girl loves it and requests it

now swimming at the sandbar

I love vacation!!!  I love summer!!  I love my family!!

Headed up to the lake house and caught this lovely pink sky at sunset.

The next morning it was perfection out there

Yoga on the upper deck wasn't a bad way to start my day.  I was Zen-ed out with my view.

Getting the boat ready for our Eichinger family get together that day.

Justin dives in

Luke, River, Orrin, Lennon in front - Claire on my lap covered with the towel (her favorite way to ride)

paddle boarding and swimming in the cove

Took the boat to the Kenosha beach to play around a bit too.

playing frisbee

Back home the night of the 3rd and caught a little of the fireworks at the country club nearby from our front yard.

Happy 4th!  We rode our bikes up to Lake Bluff not realizing how hot it was and how hard it would be for the kids.  Claire was in the trailer, but Luke had to bike a long way in the heat!

Pre-parade party at Matt's colleagues house right by the parade start.

Giving out candy to the kids was a lot of fun.

4th of July barbecue at the McCarney's house

water balloons

At the Lake Forest Fireworks Festival

Sparklers

Glow toy treat

Watching fireworks with your kids is so magical and peaceful. I wish I could bottle the feeling.

Luke is doing awesome in the summer reading program.  You get a candle for every 6 books you read and Luke has the most candles on his cake by far, and it is only a few weeks into summer vacation.

Reading the comics