what a weekend: let freedom ring

Happy birthday, America! :) Our 4th of July weekend was way busy and way fun! This post is picture overload.

Poor Josh was not feeling well for the first part of the weekend, and even took his first-ever sick day from work on Friday. Thankfully he was feeling better as the weekend went on! While he stayed in bed literally ALL day and night Friday, the boys and I went to the pool with friends and then out to dinner with Mar Mar, Papa D, Scott, and Emma that night. Good times!

Saturday morning Josh stayed home with Sam while he napped and I took Noah to the Burns Park Funland. We met Scott & Emma there and had such a good time! I had never been there before, but we'll definitely be going back. Noah loved all the rides, and I happened to love riding with him on the Tilt-a-Whirl. I can't believe Noah loved it so much, he is definitely going to have fun at theme parks as he gets older! We were spinning so fast I thought he'd hate it, but he just laughed & laughed. 

After naps on Saturday we took a little family trip to the pool. Josh wasn't feeling 100% but he was feeling better and powered through. Noah did such a good job with his swimming. He's getting braver and braver! After the pool we picked up some pizza. A nice way to end the day!

Sunday morning our church didn't have childcare in order to give all  the volunteers a break and encourage families to attend worship together. We almost just stayed home instead of attempting to take the boys, but I am SO glad we didn't! It was really neat having them in worship with us. Of course we weren't able to fully pay attention to the message, and we had to leave a little bit early when they got restless, so I'm looking forward to listening to the sermon on parenting online later! (you can hear it here if you are interested. From the bits I did hear, it was really good and full of wisdom for parents with kids of all ages.) 

The boys and I before church, and Noah during church:

We had lunch at Mimi & Papa Jim's after church, then headed home for naps, then took the boys back to Mimi & Papa Jim's so Josh & I could go on a date! Sooo nice to have that time together. We had a yummy, relaxing dinner. 

Monday was full of activity all day long. Josh & Noah headed over to the country club in the morning to meet Papa D and hit golf balls. After Sam's nap we met them over there to swim, along with Scott, Melissa, & Emma. Our buddies the Smiths were also there! Loved it. It brought back memories of all the 4th of July's I spent over there as a kid. Noah, Emma, and Annette even played one of the little games they had going on (we won't mention how the "big kids" on their team felt about that!) The club also had bouncers set up near the pool, so our kids were just in heaven. 

Later on we went to Mar Mar & Papa D's house where we had a 4th of July cook-out complete with hamburgers & hot dogs and of course sparklers, smoke bombs, and poppers. Matt, Caroline, Brady & Evan were back in town from their trip to Missouri so all the kids were glad to be together. Then as it got closer to dark, we headed back over to the golf course to watch the fireworks. Lets just say Noah wasn't the biggest fan of the noise. Sam was totally enthralled though! Thankfully he had taken a late nap so he actually made it through the fireworks show. We met back up with Annette (and of course her mommy :) ) over there and all the kids had a blast! Well, Noah did until the noise started!