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.