The 4th with Family

I'm a little late, but we had a great 4th of July celebration this year. It was the first holiday we celebrated with my parents and sister and niece since they moved here. Our little family of four started our celebration on July 3rd when the hubby decided to get a hotel room on the water for 2 days. You would have thought we were driving 8 hours to stay a week with the way our car was loaded down, but nope we were driving about 10 miles for 2 nights! We came prepared though with drinks, snacks, burgers, s'mores and a grill. Oh yeah, and clothes and swimsuits!

We got to the hotel around 1 and immediately hit the pool. We stayed out there all day long! We were finally able to get the kids out of the pool, got cleaned up and headed to Tookies for burgers. Tookies is this dark, nothing special restaurant with THE best burger around. So yummy! After we ate we came back to the hotel and crashed. The girls were worn slap out!

 The next morning we were up and at 'em again! We ate breakfast and headed straight back out to the pool. We wanted to get out there early and get our "spot" before everyone else came. We swam for awhile and then later in the morning my parents, sister and niece came to the pool and swam with us the rest of the afternoon. I am loving having my family here, close by again. We use to all live within 10 minutes of each other and now after living 8 hours apart for 5 years we're back within 10 minutes of each other again. We missed my brother-in-law being there with us (he's been in Bahrain with the military for 14 months) but as of yesterday he is back in the good ol' US of A again! For good!
We had so much fun swimming, grilling and being silly all day.

 We took a break in the afternoon and took the kiddos up to the room to nap, but when they woke up they were ready to swim again. I don't know how they did it. I was worn out! At this point we busted out the grill and started getting our burgers, veggie kabobs and sides ready. My  hubby is the man and cooked all of this amazing food on a little fish fryer stand. He had it all set up and pieced together. I wish I would have taken a picture of our set up!
My sister and I ended up coordinating as the stars and strips! Just like old times when Mom would match our outfits.

We got the kids out of the pool and got ready to feast! We ended up eating picnic style and it was perfect! We were right there on the water and it was just the way you picture the 4th of July to be.

Then we had to have a photo shoot, of course!

 

My crazy crew!

 

 

 

My parents and the grandkids 

  

 My niece

 We ended the night watching the beautiful fireworks over the water. Nothing beats celebrating the USA than celebrating it with the family! I am so thankful to have them close again!