Some of me favorite memories as a child were the many weeks I spent in Pa and NY visiting with my cousins during the summertime. I got to go see several Broadway plays, run all over New york City, explore Pittsburg (without adult supervision...), ride the inclines, and swim in the lake daily. It was always so much fun and I looked forward all year to the next adventure with my cousin Megan. This year, we had the chance to begin what will hopefully become a long standing tradition for our kids! With my little nephew still in the NICU, our family thought it would be fun to have the cousins that used to live in town with us back in town for a visit. July 4th I met them in Charlotte with a few of my kids, where we had a late breakfast with Johns brothers family and there sweet girls and Johns sister and her 3 boys that i was bringing home for the week. We hightailed it back home to celebrate the 4th. and we had a blast! I had to play in our towns holiday concert and we made it back just in time for that. After the concert, the boys lit sparklers and had a snap war with the poppit things that you throw on the ground.
Van LOVED the fireworks this year!
CL was less then impressed and slept through most of the display
the firework display was a lot shorter this year then normal, but there were tons of big ones!
My nephew B- he LOVED sparklers and i burned my thumb countless times lighting almost 100 of those suckers
E and A after the fireworks.. traffic was horrible after the fireworks so rather then sitting in the car fighting traffic for an hour we went back to the park and the kids played til almost 11 pm before heading back to our house to do even more sparklers (what can i say...we love to party!)
some friends from church had these things that lit on fire and they would grow... they were totally gross, but of course since my kids are pyros.... they had Jaren see how many could be stacked on top and still light and Jaren totally got into seeing how many they could light at once...
more sparklers
my nephews! On the way back into town we stopped at an old navy and got all the cousins matching shirts! (I am such a dork, I know, but I was really excited abt. it!)
our towns patriotic concert... we played the real 1812 overture but had to use a computer for the cannon sounds... the town wouldnt even let us use the fake cannon that they use at football games...
We had so much fun with the cousins here! We went blueberry picking...
gotta love child labor! they helped me pick 10 pounds of berries!
B quickly gave up on picking though!
and van only ate... their buckets were still empty when we left an hour later
and we swam almost every day!
Some of me favorite memories as a child were the many weeks I spent in Pa and NY visiting with my cousins during the summertime. I got to go see several Broadway plays, run all over New york City, explore Pittsburg (without adult supervision...), ride the inclines, and swim in the lake daily. It was always so much fun and I looked forward all year to the next adventure with my cousin Megan. This year, we had the chance to begin what will hopefully become a long standing tradition for our kids! With my little nephew still in the NICU, our family thought it would be fun to have the cousins that used to live in town with us back in town for a visit. July 4th I met them in Charlotte with a few of my kids, where we had a late breakfast with Johns brothers family and there sweet girls and Johns sister and her 3 boys that i was bringing home for the week. We hightailed it back home to celebrate the 4th. and we had a blast! I had to play in our towns holiday concert and we made it back just in time for that. After the concert, the boys lit sparklers and had a snap war with the poppit things that you throw on the ground. 
Van LOVED the fireworks this year!
CL was less then impressed and slept through most of the display
the firework display was a lot shorter this year then normal, but there were tons of big ones!
My nephew B- he LOVED sparklers and i burned my thumb countless times lighting almost 100 of those suckers 
E and A after the fireworks.. traffic was horrible after the fireworks so rather then sitting in the car fighting traffic for an hour we went back to the park and the kids played til almost 11 pm before heading back to our house to do even more sparklers (what can i say...we love to party!)
some friends from church had these things that lit on fire and they would grow... they were totally gross, but of course since my kids are pyros.... they had Jaren see how many could be stacked on top and still light and Jaren totally got into seeing how many they could light at once...
more sparklers
my nephews! On the way back into town we stopped at an old navy and got all the cousins matching shirts! (I am such a dork, I know, but I was really excited abt. it!)
our towns patriotic concert... we played the real 1812 overture but had to use a computer for the cannon sounds... the town wouldnt even let us use the fake cannon that they use at football games... 
We had so much fun with the cousins here! We went blueberry picking...
gotta love child labor! they helped me pick 10 pounds of berries!
B quickly gave up on picking though!
and van only ate... their buckets were still empty when we left an hour later
and we swam almost every day!
and we celebrated A's 9th birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY A!!!
CL enjoyed the dessert!
When it was time for cousins to go home, Their mom met us in a nearby town midway from Johns sister Stephanie. She brought her family up for a dinner one evening. I got to see all of my nieces and nephews this week, a totally rare event! We had such a great time with the boys this week! Thanks for sharing them Mike and Lauren!! 
