Action-Packed Weekend!

I was so sad, tonight, when I realized that our 3-day weekend was over and the mundane routine of day-to-day activites would resume again. But it has been fun to go back over all of the pictures I took this weekend to realize how much fun we had and how blessed we are to live in the United States. We appreciate all of the people who help to keep our freedoms intact. Including family members who are currently serving in the armed forces and family members and friends who have served in the past!

Thursday evening, we enjoyed some COOL breezes out on the back porch for a fun BBQ with friends. After the BBQ, some of walked to the beach to watch the Wilmette fireworks.

Here is Matt enjoying his spot in the sand.

It was such a beautifully clear night to watch the fireworks from our little blanket on the beach. Too bad Quinton enjoyed throwing the sand more than he enjoyed watching the fireworks!

Here are our friends, Mrs. R, Mr. K and Miss A, waiting for the fireworks to begin. It was so fun to make new memories with friends who we knew when we lived here before!

Mr. K works for an airline and he was able to fly in and get to our place in time to eat a burger and watch the fireworks with his adorable family. Thanks for making it!

Friday morning, we were soooo lazy and slept in after our late night of fireworks watching! We did finally get up and walked to the park and then headed to Evanston, th next town south of us, to catch the parade. This parade is a BIG deal in this area and people put their lawn chairs out starting at 6am on July 1st. The whole thing is very Chicago-style territorial and kind of funny. A friend of ours woke up at 5:30 am on July 1st and went out and set up her lawn chairs, staking her rightful claim to a primo spot along the parade route! Luckily, for Matt, Quinton and me, we were able to secure this grassy spot with no advanced planning! I only wake up at 5:30 am if there's a good sale to stand in line for!

We really enjoyed the parade. I think it's our first official 4th of July parade with Quinton!

Here is the Evanston Parade panorama:

This group was one of my favorites and had both Matt and me laughing. I don't remember the name of the group but as you can tell from the picture and they guys' outfits, they were a crowd favorite, too!

Saturday, we had the opportunity to go to our friends' lake house in Wisconsin. I love going up there because it's only an hour drive from Chicago but you feel like you are days away from all of the traffic and noise from the big city. Plus, the lake is not too big and the temperature of the water is FANTASTIC!

Matt has a triathalon next weekend and needed to get a long bike ride in so he BIKED the 60+ miles to the cabin! It took him about 3 hours and I am so proud of him for doing it! He's an awesome athlete, even at 30 something years young!

Quinton LOVED playing at the Lake House with his friends!

Matt and Quinton enjoyed playing on all of our friends' lake toys. They both had fun on the jet ski for a tour around the lake.

And they enjoyed the kayak...

Okay, this has to be one of the funniest pictures of Quinton that I've ever taken! I was trying to get a good shot of Quinton's cupcake mustache because he looked a little "MAgnum P.I." with it but then, right as I snapped the shot, he did this!

You gotta love kids!

Q is quite the dare devil. As Matt and I were loading up the car after a fun day at the lake, we looked around to find Quinton on top of the car! He'd climbed up there all by himself!

Today, there was an open house at our place, so we had to make ourselves scarce for the better part of the afternoon, after church, so we decided to go to the last day of the Taste of Chicago. The past couple of days have been really nice and cool, but today was HOT and I thought that maybe today would be a good day to go since it was the last day but there were still tons of people!

A news report this evening said that over 3.5 million people went to the Taste of Chicago this year! I can believe it because there are SO MANY PEOPLE everywhere! We didn't even bother with a stroller because we've been before and we know it's wall-to-wall people when you are walking around the food booths.

We had a good time trying all different kinds of food. We had corn-on-the-cob, cherry gelato, fried ravioli, empanadas, chicken fingers, a burger, fries, chocolate covered strawberries and our total favorite: a chocolate covered frozen banana on a stick! We were not adventurous enough, though, to try shark meat on a stick...the booth employees wearing shark hats was enough to keep me away!

Q's favorite part was the kiddie area with a train and a boucny house for him to get out some energy.

Q had lots of fun!
And Matt njoyed eating!

Q in the bouncy house!

Family outings are so much fun with a little one to share it all with!

It was so hot, today, and Q had no nap so here he is the first 5 minutes in the car on the ride home:

And here he is at about minute 6 on the car ride home:

All-in-all, it's weekends like these that I wish would never end!