Heat Wave

There was ample sun-screening to be done yesterday given the temps and bright sunshine. Alex sat right up front with Brad to have the best views of Lake Michigan.

Abby and Vanessa enjoying the breeze on the boat. The life jacket consumed Abby and she looked so cute with her cheeks all scrunched up. Much like Alex did his first time on Uncle Jim's boat at age 2, she fought the life jacket til she realized how much fun the boat was and then she gave in.

Such true weather extremes we have here throughout the year! This week has been topping out near 100 each day so all we can do is stay inside or stay in the water. Abby has decided that the water slides aren't half bad in the baby pool and Alex is hard to drag away from the big water slide.

All of us enjoyed a mid-week break as we visited with friends Mark and Sherri in New Buffalo, MI (on their family vacation) at the beach yesterday. I only took two photos all day as we were wet or sandy for much of the time. They took everyone on a boat ride over to the beach (which saved us from burning our toes in the hot sand) and we stayed wet or in the shade for most of the day. Mark's brother was kind enough to share his jet ski again so Alex and Brad had fun bouncing around on the waves. We even did a little back to school shopping at the outlet mall on the way home. All in all, a fun week! Grandma Eileen is coming in for a visit this weekend so I'm sure more pictures are soon to follow!

Abby the Fish!

Abby finally got her hair wet on a water slide today and now I can't get her off of it!

Plainfield Fest

This weekend was the annual festival in downtown Plainfield so of course we invited Chicago newbie, Brooke, to enjoy the fun with us! Alex took Abby for a spin on the "Dragon Wagon" coaster and after about two rounds of that Abby was ready to jump ship. The shady operator let her down, then continued the ride for everyone else. They burned up their tickets on other fun rides like the rocket ships and cars that run in a circle. Abby thoroughly enjoyed those rides, as did Alex. We ate our fill of carnival food for quite some time and had lots of laughs!

Picnic Snack

Beautiful weather this morning led us to take a nice bike ride followed by a picnic snack (and a little bit of garage organizing). We love summer!

Baby Pool

Daddy's Back!

Brad returned from two back to back weeks of business travel and we had two fun weekends in a row to celebrate. Abby enjoyed showing him all her new tricks in the swimming pool and Alex was happy to have a buddy on the water slides again. We are really trying to take advantage of these nice, warm temperatures as there is such a stretch of cold, miserable weather here the rest of the year! Being outside is the name of the game right now :)

Sibling Love

This will surely go down as the summer that the kids were inseparable. They have been playing so well together and enjoy "camping" in Abby's room with tents and sleeping bags. Alex is very happy to have a built-in playmate, even allowing her in his Lego room upstairs from time to time.

July 3 Fireworks

Clearly we don't have enough red, white and blue in our wardrobes!
Andrew and Nicci were bursting with excitement!

Nice smile Abby.

The Village of Plainfield puts on a pretty impressive little fireworks show at a local park each year on the Sunday of the holiday weekend. Our kids love fireworks and have yet to be the grab-their-ears-and-scream type. Abby was all smiles that night, easily impressed, and Alex enjoyed the big, noisy ones the best.

New Buffalo, MI

Now that we know how close New Buffalo Beach is to our home, we decided to make a day trip of it this year. Nicci and Andrew trekked out there with us and everyone enjoyed cooling off in the lake and playing in the sand. Alex had his first adventure on a jet ski when we bumped into friends that day, and he loved it! We brought home a bucket of shells and pretty rocks that Alex collected throughout the day.

Fireworks Fun

Aunt Nicci and Uncle Andrew came to visit and brought a few things to keep the kids entertained in the evenings. All the neighborhood kids enjoyed watching the pretty sparklers and such throughout the weekend. Great fun!

Princess Nails

I painted Abby's nails for the first time the other day. She went around telling everyone she had "princess nails". Adorable.