4th of July

The 4th of July was awesome here! Mike knows its one of my very favorite holidays to celebrate so he made sure to plan something fun. We went to Silver Beach, a beach on Lake Michigan. This is where Mike's Nonnie and Papa live, also his Aunt Sheri and Uncle John and their kids. Now, I grew up living fifteen minutes from a lake. We went there all the time. This was NOT a Texas lake. It had real sand, cool and refreshing water and it really did feel like the ocean. Benson was not happy about the cold water and sand all over at first, but he warmed up to it and had fun dragging me through the water later on. We built sand castles, buried Benson in the sand (pictured below...he really did have fun that day, I promise. He was just freezing and shivering and probably his body was shutting down from hypothermia at this point. Not the best parenting moment on our part) The beach was crowded crowded crowded, but that just added to the fun. Who doesn't like to be sitting down staring at the beautiful beach and turn around only to find a giant bum in your face? Mike and I had a few good laughs over that one. Especially because we had Mike's 14 year old brother there and 14 year old cousin with us and they weren't as comfortable with the bum-face situation as we were. It was funny. After the beach, we took Benson over to the gigantic splash pad just a minute or two walk up from the beach and it was fun! Every fifteen minutes they have 4 fire engine hoses spray water into the center of the circle and everyone just groups together and gets hosed. Really really fun, and only a little painful for sunburned bodies. After that we all went and got delicious ice cream at a little ice cream shop and headed home for dinner with nonnie, papa, uncle john, Aunt Sheri and cousin Elizabeth. Three words: Silver Beach Pizza. Yum-a-li-cious. Watermelon for dessert (couldn't have asked for anything more) as we sat on the front porch watching the sunset and getting crazy messy stuffing our faces with gigantic pieces of watermelon. Benson was in heaven. Did I mention Mike's Nonnie and Papa live right on Lake Michigan? The view is incredibly gorgeous and it really was a perfect end to a perfect day. We skipped fireworks (party poopers, don't judge) because we wanted to avoid the crowds on the little over 2 hour drive home. The awesome thing was that as we were driving there were firework shows going on in every city by the highways, so we saw about fifteen different show. Benson stayed awake the whole time pointing them out to us. We had such an awesome day, thanks Nonnie and Papa for having us!

PS... the last picture or whatever order it's in, is of Benson in his new car. The smile on his face does not even begin to express his Euphoria as he realized the car was his when we got it home. I've started parking in the driveway so that he doesn't see the car and insist on driving it around for two hours before we go anywhere (tantrums, I'm doing it to avoid tantrums). Best part is, I found it for three dollars! Go garage sale me!