4th of july

poor 4th of july this year was overshadowed by the fact that we are leaving on vacation in three days. there were no fancy decorations or desserts decorated with red, white, and blue this year. we did get together though. we went to jen and ray's house. we usually do a sleepover but we skipped that and just drove to their house early in the morning. i already have too much packing to do to even think about a sleepover.

we usually walk to the beach with all our gear and strollers but this year jen and ray had the excellent idea of dropping the cars off early in the morning with all our beach gear in the trunk and then later we could all walk to the beach without all the stuff. the best part of the plan is when it is time to leave the beach and all the kids are tired we could just drive back to jen and ray's house.

the plan pretty much worked except for two things. 1) jen and christina forgot to put their beach gear in the trunk before dropping the car off and 2) the drive back to the house after our beach day was insane with all the holiday traffic. i still think it was better than walking back carrying a kid and big beach bag though. the kids loved the beach. we had fun playing in the waves and they were all excited to have uncle ray take them "deep" in the ocean. miles and i always stay in the shallow part. back by the towels the kids and their aunties built this big sand castle. it was pretty cool.

we had a yummy taco dinner and then the kids did poppers outside on the sidewalk. we didn't go to see fireworks. that was a bummer. it was late and miles and i were really tired. dahlia wanted to see fireworks this year though so miles drove them to the top of our block and they got to see some from there. it was a fun holiday and nice to spend the day together.