Fourth of July-2013

For the Fourth of July, my family came to visit and spend the day with us. Diane, Josh, and Hannah also stopped by to visit for a little bit. We had lots of fun grilling, swimming in the pool, and spending time with each other. I got to love on my sweet niece, Tinsley, too! It's hard to believe that she's going to be one next month! Where did this year go?? 

Eli and Hannah had a chicken fight rematch. Eli won the first game and Hannah won the second. 

Then my crazy husband decided it'd be fun for us to chicken fight Josh and Diane. I'm always up for some fun so I climbed on his shoulders. The Hargons were scared though and didn't take the bait. Haha! Since we didn't chicken fight, Josh thought he'd scare me to death instead and got out of the pool with me still on his shoulders and JUMPED OFF THE DIVING BOARD! You can tell by my face that I was scared for several reasons:

1.) That I was going to fall off his shoulders and break something. 

2.) That we were going to break the diving board in half.

3.) That I was going to get a concussion from hitting the diving board when we jumped in the pool.

4.) All of the above or something worse.

Thankfully, none of those things happened and Eli now thinks we're pretty cool parents :) If he ever decides to do what we did though, I'm pretty sure I'll flip my lid!

Josh's next pool trick involved Eli. Basically, Eli gets into a very tight little ball and Josh throws him in the air. Eli flips like Sonic the Hedgehog and does a perfect landing in the water. Eli LOVES it and always comes up smiling from ear to ear. Scares me to death every single time though...

Josh and Hannah tried it and Hannah was great, too!

I love these two little daredevils!

Tinsley really wasn't having a great day. She was cutting teeth and not feeling all that great. (Andrea found out a couple days later that she had lots of fluid in her ears. Poor baby!) We went inside so Tinsley could eat her lunch before we ate ours. 

Josh manned the grill this day and did a FABULOUS job! Everything tasted wonderful!

After lunch, Tinsley and Eli played a little bit together with some of Eli's toys. I kept back some toys of his that are really too young so that when Tinsley visited she'd have something to play with. What ended up happening though is that Eli rediscovered these toys and wanted to play with them. 

We spent a couple more hours playing in the pool and having fun and then they all had to leave. It was such a fun Fourth of July. I'm really glad my family is so close now! I love that we can be together for holidays and other special occasions. 

After my family left, we rested and had some down time and then got ready for the annual fireworks show down at the river front. The only negative was that it started at 9 PM. Oh well...it's summer! The fireworks show was great but the best part was sharing it with my boys. I'm so thankful for them and I'm so thankful to live in a country that's free. Thank you, God, for all my many blessings and for the men and women who fight for those blessings every single day. Happy Fourth of July!

My Boys and Their Jeep

My boys LOVE taking  their new Jeep for rides around town. This particular day Josh was just moving it in the driveway and I snapped a quick picture of them in it. I love seeing them doing things like this together! 

Audubon Aquarium of the Americas

During the last weekend in June, Eli and I took a little trip to see my parents. Since we were going to be staying with them for a couple of days we went ahead and made plans to make the drive to the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas in New Orleans. My brother, Caleb, and his girlfriend, Kailey, had been wanting to go to the aquarium with Eli so this seemed like a good time to go! We thought about doing the zoo while we were down there, but it's just too hot...maybe in the fall when it gets cooler. 

I've been to New Orleans more times than I can count but I've never been to the aquarium. I was really looking forward to seeing everything. Eli was most excited about seeing the sharks and the penguins. 

In the very first tank, workers were feeding the sting rays and some of the other fish. They were going crazy...the fish, not the workers. The sting rays were definitely my favorite. They looked so happy :) Of course, I wouldn't be very happy about seeing one of them in the wild, but behind glass they're pretty cool.

Our next stop was to look at some of the fish and animals you would find in the Amazon. The creepiest one here was the anaconda. Ooooh, how I hate snakes. I couldn't get a good picture of it because of its size, but just trust me when I tell you it was not fun to look at.

Eli loved holding the map and kept directing us which way we needed to go. 

Eli with Grammy and Pop

Sparkly piranhas

We came back inside and met some pretty cute penguins. I wish we could have gotten closer to them like when we went to the Dallas World Aquarium, but they were still fun to watch.

Next, it was time for some sharks! First though we had to take a picture inside the jaws of the shark mouth. It's an obligatory photo op for sure.

Eli loved watching the sharks.

We moved on to the seahorses next. They are always one of my favorites at an aquarium. They're just fascinating creatures to me.

I thought this seahorse was prego, but found out it is a species called the potbelly seahorse.

I thought the lionfish were pretty cool, too.

The moray eels were CREEPY!

We visited the frogs next.

Then we ate a quick lunch in the cafeteria and after that we went to visit the birds. Usually, I'm not a fan of birds, but this was a fun experience for all of us.

After the birds, we came back in and visited the shark tank again. Eli loved watching them.

One of the last tanks before leaving were the jellyfish tanks. I think jellyfish are really pretty to look at and they photograph so well. Once again though, if I see them in the wild, I'm going to get away from them quickly!

I let Eli pick out two small souvenirs and then we left the aquarium. It'd been a very fun day! I can't wait to go back in the fall and visit the zoo and maybe the insectarium. I know Eli will love them both!