The 4th of July, Nascar, then Orlando!

July has been super busy for us!  A holiday followed by out of town trips 2 weekends in a row left us tons of laundry and chores.... and 4 exhausted people!

It has been raining in Tally for the entire month of July!  So, July 4th celebrations were rained out all over town.  Except in our neighborhood!  We bought the boys a little bucket of fireworks and braved the rain drizzle to have some fun!  I stood under my umbrella and attempted to take pictures.  Our bucket of fun was quickly over taken by 4 or 5 groups of neighbors who were shooting off mortars!  If there is ever a neighborhood fireworks competition, we will not win.  But we will watch and have a blast!

Daniel took this picture, I am not sure how he did it but the slight blur looks pretty cool!

How my boys watch fireworks!

The Friday after the 4th, Allen and I met up with our good friends and fellow Smiths, Jeremy and Dee, to head to our annual redneck festival, the Coke Zero 400 in Daytona.  We met Danny in Jacksonville and were on our way! 

In the infield

something new this year, the Coke Zero Island

Something else new, the Budweiser Clydesdales!  They were beautiful!

me and  my car!

Danny's newest thing... photobombing!  (this is like number 7 for the day)

Dee and I could not hold it together to take a decent pic after my awesome brother!

the start.... this never gets old!

This year's race was a ton of fun!  We each pick our drivers the day before (mine is ALWAYS Dale Jr) and at the end of the race 4 out of 8 of the drivers were still in the top 10.  So we were screaming watching and on the last lap there were 2 major wrecks..... the last wreck happened right in front of us and our most HATED driver had to get out of his car and walk away..... the walk of shame!  Not to mention there was a little boy right behind us who was at his first race and having a blast!  It was a great year!  Have I mentioned that I LOVE Nascar? 

The very next weekend, Mom was celebrating her birthday and asked us to come with her to Orlando.  It was a quick trip.... we got there Saturday around lunch time and left Sunday around lunch time.  We attempted to go to Wet N Wild but after an hour we got stormed out.  So we went to Universal's mall thing (I do not know the official name) (thank you captain obvious!).  Mom wanted to go to Hard Rock Cafe for dinner.  Then we wandered around for a bit.

The next morning we got up and went and played a VERY hot round of putt-putt!  It was fun, but very hot!

I love this picture!  Uncle Danny does not get to see the boys that much and this melts my heart!

We had a great time in Daytona and Orlando!  We spent the next weekend just trying to catch our breath and this weekend is busy busy again!  Summer is coming to an end for the boys so we are trying to squeeze in at least one more beach trip and one more big fun thing before Daniel starts 5th grade.  Yes..... 5th grade. I am not scared at all.  And I am lieing.

Our happenings and such

So it's been a little over a month since I blogged anything.  Nothing too big has happened.  Allen got a new job and is now working at Dale Jr Buick GMC Cadillac so we have been getting adjusted to a new schedule.  He has weekends off which is amazing... first time in 3 years he has had every weekend off and we can make family plans every weekend.

So, we are taking advantage of that!  We took our first beach trip of the summer and we had a blast!

the boys dug in the sand almost all day

not too brag, but this is me showing off the fact that I have lost 35 pounds!

this is me right after I tried to smash the boys old castle (that was already falling apart) and instead fell on my butt!

 

After the beach that day we headed to Apalachicola for ice cream and to wander around.  I love that little town!

We have also spent some time with two little babies that I absolutely adore!

We spent some time at the park with Daniel's siblings.... I only got a couple of pictures and none with Lailani... oh well!

The boys found a bug!

A big big milestone happened.... I turned 30!  I wanted to blog about that all by itself because it was amazing, but the person who was supposed to take pictures (the hubs) only took one...

Me on my 30th!

He had a surprise dinner for me at the Front Porch.  It was amazing!  My family and my closest friends were there.  We spent the next day together too.  We went out to lunch, went shopping and got frozen yogurt before heading to get the boys from summer camp!  I could not have asked for a better way to spend my 30th birthday!

We have also spent more time with those two little babies!

Uncle Allen with Mr Grant

Aunt Jen with both of the babies

Someone also reminisced about what it was like when he was a baby...

So far our summer has been amazing!  Daniel spent a week at Camp Indian Springs and had the time of his life.  He is excited to go back next year!  Connor is finally completely out of pull ups.... he was only wearing them at night and now none at all! 

This Friday Allen and I are headed to Daytona for our annual Nascar trip!  We will be there with Danny, Jeremy and Dee.  Travis, Randilynn and Cherie will be in Daytona too!

Super excited about our trip and the rest of our summer.  Definitely more beach trips in the future and a ton of fun ahead!  Can't wait to share!