I have sat down to write this blog a number of times, gotten started and then had to quit because it was taking so long! I wanted to include everything that we have done over this past week and boy was a lot. June, July and August are the busiest months for us out of the year. Here is the reason why:
1. June 11 is my father-in-law's birthday
2.June 14 is Russ' birthday
3. June 15 is Father's Day
4. June 15 is my grandfather's birthday
5. June 30 is our anniversary
6. July 3 is my brother Jay and my brother in law Greg's birthdays
7. July 6 is my birthday, my dad's and also our dog Tuxedo's birthday
8. July 11 is my parent's anniversary
9. July 24 is my other grandfather's birthday
10. July 23 is Kathryn's birthday
11. July 24 is my grandparent's 65th wedding anniversary!!!
12. Sometime around the 23rd will be my new niece Flynn's birthday.
13. July 25 is my sister-in-law Stephanie's birthday
14. August 1 is my mother's birthday
15. August 15 is my mother-in-laws birthday
Can you beat that?
We headed home from Greenville on Friday, June 27 in the afternoon. Russ flew home from Miami and met us at our house at 6:30. We unpacked, repacked, fed the kids dinner and then left for Litchfield beach. We arrived at 11:30 and jumped in bed!
Russ spent Sunday morning playing golf while the kids and I played in the pool. That evening we went to eat dinner at Chick-fil-a and then took Caleb to play his first game of Putt-Putt. He absolutely loved it and was so cute to watch. He was pretty good at hitting the ball! Russ and I have been pretty competitive in our putt-putt games in the past, but we had to forgo the scoring becuase Caleb just loved to stop our balls and hit them himself into the hole! We had a wonderful time and will definitely make that a new tradition at the beach!
Pirate faces
My in-laws arrived at the beach really late in Sunday night. They had been in Mexico and flew into Charlotte on Sunday evening and then drove down. Russ' brother Greg and his girlfriend Amanda came down on Wedneday evening. It is tradition int he Taylor family to spend the week of the 4th together at the beach house. Unfortunately, Russ brother Brad, his wife Anna and son Roane weren't able to be here this year. They are expecting a baby girl in the next 2 weeks, so it was too much for them to come. We really missed them and will look forward to next year when we all can be together!
We spent a lot of time in the pool in the backyard and it was wonderful. Caleb loved swimming with his new swimmies and was quit a little fish! My in-laws have just added a hot tub with a waterfall flowing into the pool and let me tell you, it is wonderful! Caleb fell in love with and kept asking Papa to make the water warm. We spent a lot of time relaxing in the hot tub. I think we enjoyed that even better than the pool! Here are some pictures of our time at the pool:
On Monday night, Russ and I celebrated our 7th anniversary. 7 years now, I can't hardly believe it. My how much our lives have changed over the past years and I wouldn't change it for the world. I am so incredibly blessed to have Russ as my husband. I am more in love with him now than the day I married him.!
We celebrated our anniversary by getting dressed up and going to a really nice restaurant. My in-law's kept Caleb and Kathryn for us, so Russ and I enjoyed a wonderful meal with just the 2 of us. After dinner, we headed over to Broadway at the Beach. We shopped around and got gifts for our children and then went to an Imax movie about the Grand Canyon. The pictures were fascinating, but we could have gone without all of the political junk that was thrown in about global warming! We had a fabulous evening and headed home really late! Happy Anniversary Russ!
Here is a picture of us wearing our 3D glasses in the movie - Russ will hate it when he finds out I put this in the blog!
Married 7 years and still lovin' it!
On Wednesday morning we decided to venture out to the beach. It is amazing how much things have changed over the past few years now that Russ' parents have a new beach house equipped with a pool and hot tub in the back yard. We can enjoy the ocean air and breeze, without all of the sand! We really only made it out to the beach 1 morning the entire week we were there. Caleb and Kathryn enjoyed playing in the sand. Russ and his dad helped Caleb build a sand castle. After a few hours, we had "been there done that" and were ready to go back to the pool! It seems like we spend more time getting ready to go down to the beach than we actually spend at the beach!
We went out to dinner on Wednesday evening with Russ' parents to a place called the Litchfield Fish House. We had a great seafood meal and enjoyed watching Kathryn eat about 6 hush puppies! We told Caleb that after dinner we would have a movie night where he could stay up late, eat popcorn and watch a movie with everybody. We headed out to Blockbuster to rent a movie. Caleb chose "Lady and the Tramp" because that is one of his favorite books to read at Mimi's house. He loved watching the movie with us and it was so much fun!
Dinner at the Fish House
Nana and Kathryn outside of the restaurant
Caleb sitting with Papa watching "Lady and the Tramp"
On Thursday we celebrated Uncle Greg's birthday out by the pool. We ordered out a big batch of ribs for dinner and ate out by the pool. Happy Birthday Greg and Jay! We loved being able to spend Greg's birthday with him, but we missed seeing my brother Jay for his!
July 4 was a really busy day. It is a tradition in the neighborhood at Litchfield to participate in a golf cart parade. Russ and his dad spent the morning getting the golf cart all ready with lots of patriotic decorations. The parade begins at 10 a.m. and is HUGE! I heard that there were around 200 golf carts this year. Everyone decorates their cart and parades around the neighborhood. Some people go all out decorating their carts. We even had a bagpiper playing patriotic music a few carts in front of us. People line all up and down the streets to watch the parade and it is even lead by a police escort. The people riding in the carts throw candy out to all of the kids lined up on the street. Of course, the candy thrower was Caleb and he did a great job! Both Caleb and Kathryn loved riding in the parade and it was a fun way to spend our morning!
That evening we went over to the Curtis' house for dinner, desert and a big firework show. The Curtis' are good family friends and they rent a house right on the beach every year for the week of July 4. It is tradition every year for my father-in-law Ernie to grill a delicious beef tenderloin and take it over to eat with the Curtis. After dinner we sit out on the walkway and watch a huge firework show on the beach. It is really just individuals who do their own fireworks, but they line up and down the beach. It is really good and lots of fun to watch. It went on for about and hour and half, so we had had enough fireworks by the time it was over. Caleb loved watching the fireworks, but he did not like listening to them. In fact, he watched the entire time with his hands over his ears! He was exhausted after about an hour and fell asleep on Nana's lap while the fireworks continued. Kathryn slept through the whole firework show inside the house. Hopefully she can join in on the fun next year!
On Saturday morning we got up and left for Greenville to celebrate my birthday and my dad's birthday. What is normally a 3 1/2 hour trip, turned into a 6 1/2 hour trip. There was so much traffic leaving the beach that it was ridiculous! We arrived in Greenville in time for a big dinner at my parent's house. My mom had grilled ribs on the gril and invited my grandfather, my uncle with his girlfriend and their 5 kids. It was a packed house, but we enjoyed every minute of it. It was a wonderful dinner! We left on Sunday evening ready to get back home. Here are some new family pictures:
