freedom

we had an explosive 4th!


there’s nothing like spending the whole day at the beach with family and friends.


i know that by now, you all must be very very bored of beach pictures, fishing pictures, ocean life, etc. but this is our life at present, so i must show you just a few more :)

it started out with a bang when we caught some sharks.
some small:

some a bit bigger:
(a hammerhead that the boy reeled in…he’s becoming quite the fisher-boy)
and some pretty darn big!

we watched our neighbor reel in this one:
makes this momma a tad bit nervous!

the crazies and i worked on putting together a ladder ball game without directions. when we couldn’t quite figure it out, they suggested calling Handy Manny. when he didn’t answer, they resorted to texting him. unfortunately for us, he was on vacation.
later that afternoon, when the waves picked up, canaan tried riding a few:
while my little firecracker and i played on shore…
with our shadows:
we enjoyed the best holiday-ish food with our friends and family. (and i’ll be back with one of the recipes that you will not be able to keep your hands off of!)
and waited for the sun to set while we finished up some games of Ladderball (we finally figured out the set-up), Bocci, and Baggo:

as soon as it was dark enough, we lit up our sparklers:

and settled in for the city’s fireworks show:



this is how the bug watched the entire fireworks show:
we rounded up all our stuff, in the dark…but thankfully we had our handy dandy headlamps to guide us!
by the time we finally made it inside, the crazies were so exhausted that they were literally begging me to put them to bed!

in other news:
my sister in law is getting married this weekend, so all our family arrived yesterday and today, and so far, we’ve had a blast together!

here are the hub’s precious grandmothers: Mamaw and Granny, as the crazies call them:
this afternoon, we gave our California family a lesson in finding shark’s teeth:and it didn’t take us long with that many eyes to find a handful!and just for fun…cause if you’re anything like me, then you might just like these kinds of details!

here’s my bridesmaid dress for this weekend:
(dress: Anthropologie; shoes: Rack Room)

and this is what i’m hoping my hair can at least somewhat resemble for the wedding!
our next few days are jam-packed full of wedding fun. i’ll be sure to share the details when i get a chance!