We spent the first week of July in Myrtle Beach with my side of the family. Hopefully it's the first of many family reunion trips. Dave and Emily flew to DC a couple days early so they could site-see before heading to South Carolina. We caravaned partly because we packed so much stuff and partly because we didn't want to subject Dave and Em to our screaming children and children's story CDs for six plus hours.
In the end the trip took more like 10 hours once we waded through the standard traffic between DC and Richmond, stopped for dinner (at CiCi's pizza of course), and dealt with a tire blow out somewhere in no-where North Carolina (we drove to three car shops before we found one open on a Saturday).
It was fun to celebrate the 4th of July with family. We pretty much spent the day at the beach, put the kids to bed, then returned to the beach to watch fireworks (we snuck Liz out later, but she was too afraid so it was back to bed for her). From where we were located we could see two distant shows at either end of the beach, but more spectacular than those were the fireworks exploding over our heads and all along the beach thanks to other beachgoers. A few days later a bunch of the dads bought their own stash of fireworks but never really got around to lighting them off. Since five of the seven famlies had to fly to the vacation, Andrew and I inherited a lot of those fireworks.
Mike & Dave grew out some awesome amounts of facial hair before our trip (I think it may have been a competition). They shaved before family pictures (shaved in stages that is, check out David's reverse Hitler below).
The kids loved the beach and the pool when they were outside, but as soon as they came indoors all they wanted were iPads (Rob and Mom both brought theirs). Of course the Dads enjoyed iPads as well (when they could get them away from the children).
Ellie's favorite thing to do was climb the stairs. We were in a three story condo and had neglected to bring baby gates (huge mistake). At least a dozen times a day we were removing her from the stairs, sometimes not catching up to her until she was at the top floor.
When we planned the trip (I was the planner this year), Andrew asked me to put in a guy day and girl day. Our girl day the was very predictable, but very fun. We went shopping at the outlets, got pedicures, and went out to lunch. The guys planned to go deep sea fishing. The night before their scheduled trip (and our last day there) their tour guide cancelled the trip, citing expected inclement weather. They scrambled and found a new tour guide. Everything seemed fine the next morning, they took their motion sickness pills and drove around in the boat for awhile before their trip was cancelled yet again. We felt bad that the trip didn't work out, especially since they had to work so hard to get their money back. Also, the motion sickness pills really hit Drew hard. He slept pretty much the whole time in the car and the boat.
On our last evening we celebrated Codi's birthday. She's scaredh of snakes (her husband owns dozens) so as a joke she ended with a snake on her cake.
That's Uncle Dave that the girls are smushing under the cushion.
Alaina is pretty much leading Nana in a cheer. Lots of clapping and chanting and then Laines would say, "one more time now."
Nana provided Hawaiian shirts for the guys and leis for the little girls for her Hawaiian haystack luau. My girls loved them.
Poor worn out Smith . . . 
just like his mom. My favorite thing about this is that she was actually babysitting my kids (the little ones were napping).
It was fun to celebrate the 4th of July with family. We pretty much spent the day at the beach, put the kids to bed, then returned to the beach to watch fireworks (we snuck Liz out later, but she was too afraid so it was back to bed for her). From where we were located we could see two distant shows at either end of the beach, but more spectacular than those were the fireworks exploding over our heads and all along the beach thanks to other beachgoers. A few days later a bunch of the dads bought their own stash of fireworks but never really got around to lighting them off. Since five of the seven famlies had to fly to the vacation, Andrew and I inherited a lot of those fireworks.
Mike & Dave grew out some awesome amounts of facial hair before our trip (I think it may have been a competition). They shaved before family pictures (shaved in stages that is, check out David's reverse Hitler below).
The kids loved the beach and the pool when they were outside, but as soon as they came indoors all they wanted were iPads (Rob and Mom both brought theirs). Of course the Dads enjoyed iPads as well (when they could get them away from the children).
Ellie's favorite thing to do was climb the stairs. We were in a three story condo and had neglected to bring baby gates (huge mistake). At least a dozen times a day we were removing her from the stairs, sometimes not catching up to her until she was at the top floor.
When we planned the trip (I was the planner this year), Andrew asked me to put in a guy day and girl day. Our girl day the was very predictable, but very fun. We went shopping at the outlets, got pedicures, and went out to lunch. The guys planned to go deep sea fishing. The night before their scheduled trip (and our last day there) their tour guide cancelled the trip, citing expected inclement weather. They scrambled and found a new tour guide. Everything seemed fine the next morning, they took their motion sickness pills and drove around in the boat for awhile before their trip was cancelled yet again. We felt bad that the trip didn't work out, especially since they had to work so hard to get their money back. Also, the motion sickness pills really hit Drew hard. He slept pretty much the whole time in the car and the boat. 
On our last evening we celebrated Codi's birthday. She's scaredh of snakes (her husband owns dozens) so as a joke she ended with a snake on her cake. 
We played in the waterfalls. 
And Alaina and Drew played some game, where he pretended that he was about to go under the water and she "saved" him. Laines loved it. After she saved him, she'd shove his chest so she could start the whole process over again.
We met up with our friends, the Blacks, but were suprised to also run into four other families we knew. Two of the families had daughters in Lizzie's Brownie troop so she pretty much stuck with them and we just caught glimpses of her as she and her friends raced between the wave pool and the water slides (Liz was just barely/maybe not quite tall enough for them). 
Drew and I spent a lot of time with the two little ones in the tot pool. The girlies love it and since Ellie could safely crawl through the water it was easy for us. 
Their favorite part: mini fountain. 
Ellie tried to crawl away, but Lainey grabbed her ankles and started dragging her to the shore. Luckily Elles was able to keep her head about the water. 
into a campfire.
Alaina "helped."
Then, we shook some whipping cream in a old peanut butter jar until it turned to butter (to eat with rolls and our homemade strawberry jam).
All the girls took turns shaking the butter and while they did we told them stories about their pioneer ancestors. Drew told them about Richard Godfrey (Jake's namesake) who was part of the fated Martin handcart company. I told about Charles Samson who was part of the rescue party.
Check out Ellie in the above picture. She's always sticking her finger in her belly button. Andrew and I are slightly concerned that it's becoming a form of self comfort (like thumb sucking) because we've noticed her doing at night when we put her to bed. I think if she does it as a baby that's no biggie, but if she's still doing it in preschool and kindergarten she'll be in danger of being the classroom weirdo. Also, as Drew points out, her fingers will always smell.
