All Because Two People Fell in Love...

Thursday, July 6, 2017

Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July from the Hoose/Holland's! Aunt Kerry is visiting from her travels and we had a great day with her!!! Thanks pawpaw for pool, food, and our annual John Deere parade.

Our annual 4th of July John Deere parade. It might have been the most disorganized parade ever but at one point everyone lined up, including Dee.

Chloe's dance recital

Chloe had her first dance recital last month. I was one nervous momma but she did great :) Thank you to all of her family for coming to watch her!

Here is the video of the rehearsal. She is the middle one (second from the left).

We took our family "vacation" to Florida last week. I put vacation in quotes because this was more of a "trip" than a "vacation". I feel vacation implies some sort of relaxation/escape from real life and since there was very little actual relaxing and I was still cooking and doing laundry there was not much escape from real life! But we had a really nice time, enjoyed making memories with our kids, and overall had a great trip.

We got a very early start. Nolan was asking to go back to bed and Logan decided he no longer wanted to go. But our drive went smoothly (compared to last years 3 hour pit stop at an ER in Mississippi) and we made it while the sun was still up. Two out of our three kids were so excited to be at the beach!

We had a fair amount of rain on our trip but we were still able to enjoy a lot of beach time! Most days were green flag days which meant we all were able to go out and enjoy the water! Logan loved boogie boarding. Chloe loved trying and floating in the waves. Nolan loved to "go ocean" and float in the water. He also enjoyed his blanket and trucks.

Nolan hauled the boogie board down to the waters edge when I stopped him so he sat and watched his brother from the shore.

We didnt have any really nice sunsets but I attempted family photos anyways. It was interesting.

This is my favorite....

We have made 6 trips to the Florida panhandle and this was our first shark encounter. The first time the sharks only got close and the lifeguards cleared everyone out of the water to be safe. The second time everyone was cleared out, the sharks swam right by us. There were 6 or 7 bull sharks. It was pretty neat (especially since no one in my family was in the water :) ). It was pretty crazy how close to shore they were- literally where we had just been playing! I was also amused at the sight of everyone on the beach standing at the edge of the water to watch.