visitors from West Palm Beach

Curt's parents and sisters were traveling this week for the sad circumstance of attending a good friend's funeral.

Happily for us that travel brought them close enough that Shauna and the girls stopped by to stay for a bit afterwards.

We went to the Coke Museum in downtown Atlanta and then stopped off at the Varsity for lunch.

{Katherine, Shauna, Megan, Evie, Des}

{I liked the bottle they had built out of circuit boards}

{an emphatic 'no' about something}

{most people's favorite part, the tasting room at the end where you can try a bunch of Coke's products, including international flavors, without limit}

 

 

{this colorful wall doesn't really scream 'I'm at the Coke museum', but it ended up being one of the most fun photo backdrops because of the fun colors and the light} 

Then last night we went to Stone Mountain again.

 

{bug spray is an essential}

And now they're all packed up and headed back down the Florida interstate.

Fun, quick visit.

the fourth

We started off planning to head to Utah the morning of the 4th of July to see a bunch of family.

But, even though flights had looked good up until the morning before, they filled up and we actually didn't make it out.  Bummer.

So we headed home in time for naps.

Then it was beautiful outside and we were all in our red, white, and blue so I made everyone take a quick round of family photos.

Then we had a really yummy barbeque.

Then we went to local fireworks.

{our flag and a deer in the neighbor's yard across the street}

{walking from where we parked the car to the place of fireworks}

{Parking at the fireworks}

{We're like the only ones in our town to not have a golf cart. Paths connect everything.}

{brought some hearing protection for Evie, turned out to be a smart move}

{an airplane was making shapes in the sky as we waited for dark}

{the crowd gathering} 

The fireworks were awesome and then we took our way-past-bedtime kiddos home.

The next day we went to our neighborhood's pool.

We thought it might be crowded, turned out we were almost the only ones there.

So perfect.

{after getting out and mid getting changed}

{Des in the little kiddy pool}

 So even though the weekend didn't go exactly as planned, it was an awful good time with my little family.

a new car

Imagine that post title said in a Price is Right announcer voice.

At least that's what I do.

Way back in March we did a day trip down to Tampa to buy and pick up a new vehicle.

Curt had been looking for a while as we knew we were looking to expand our family numbers.

We want lots of kids, so we were looking for the largest thing we could get without buying a 15 passenger van (although that's not off of the table for the future ;).

Navigators, Expeditions, no GM products

Ended up being an Expedition. 

Big and beautiful, very comfortably fits eight people + stuff.

Des on the quick flight down

Curt and Evie on the quick flight down

 Safely home