Beach Vacation

We have just returned from a wonderful week at the beach.  It always seems to fly by so quickly.  

 We arrived on the 4th of July.  This is the first time that we've been in Fernandina for Independence Day.  From the pier we could see the fireworks that people were shooting off all up and down the beach.  It was a non-stop display in both directions. There were even people shooting them off from right next to the pier. These were amazing because they exploded right above us.  We could also see the fireworks from downtown Fernandina, from the Ritz Carlton, and from Jacksonville (in the distance).  The view from the pier was spectacular.

One evening we had cake and ice cream to celebrate all of those with summer birthdays.

 The kids had a great time hanging out together.

 Downtown Fernandina has tons of great restaurants, so we made it a point to visit a few of them.  We had a great week.

Swim Team

 This summer Olivia swam with the local aquatics club.  Every week we attended swim meets with other teams in our area.  She really improved a lot over the course of the summer.  Her greatest improvement has been the backstroke (16.31 second improvement from first to last meet). This was our first year of swimming, so it has definitely been a learning experience.  We have enjoyed this experience and look forward to doing it all again next summer.

Spirit of Liberty

 Last weekend the kids and I attended the Spirit of Liberty festival.  We went in the evening to enjoy the band and then we stayed for the fireworks.  The kids had a great time listening to the music and eating boiled peanuts.  We ran into my friend Anna and visited with her for a bit.  It was a fun evening.

Drive-in Movie

For the past two years, I have heard countless tales about how awesome the Jesup Drive-in is.  The kids and I decided that we needed to check it out for ourselves.  The verdict is in- the Jesup Drive-in is the bomb.  This theater built in 1948 is the oldest operating drive-in in Georgia. From the car-hops to the black-and-white ads that run prior the movie, 1950s-era nostalgia is present in many aspects of the drive-in.  All of these things are great but they are not why I liked this place so much.  To begin with, the value is unbeatable.  All showings are double features, so for one low admission ($7 adult, $3 child) we got to see TWO newly released movies.  I spent $13 bucks total and we saw both Inside Out and Jurassic World.  While the price was my favorite part, the kids liked the playground.  The playground is right in front of the screen.  Kids are able to burn some energy while waiting on the movie to begin.  The playground even had a merry-go-round.  I have never really thought about this before, but the kids have never seen a merry-go-round as none of our local playgrounds have one.  They loved this and played on it more than any other piece of playground equipment.  The only draw-back is that the first movie can't begin until it's totally dark, so we didn't get home until after 1 a.m.  Poor Owen didn't make it through the second movie.  Even so, we all loved the drive-in and hope for many return trips.

Summer Waves

It has been soooo hot lately.  We have pretty much had to hide out indoors because of the sweltering weather.  Last week was exceptionally bad, so imagine how happy we were when my friends Anna and Krystial invited us to go to Summer Waves Waterpark with them.  A nice dip in the cool water is what was needed.  Olivia and Owen were excited to ride all of the slides, and they were equally as pleased to have other kids to play with (besides each other).  The slides that they rode the most were the two speed slides.  I don't know that they necessarily liked those the best, but those two slides never had much of a line- and they liked not having to wait.  We also enjoyed the lazy river and wave pool.  We were there pretty much all day and were super tired when we got home.  It was great to get out and spend time with friends.

Yep, This Happened

Well, we should have had Jerry spayed.  We didn't, and now we have four little fur balls running around.  The kids love the kittens to pieces and they want to keep them all.  We're not keeping any of them.  Once they're old enough we will find good homes for them.  Jerry is also going to be spayed so that we can avoid a repeat of this situation.  The kitties are here for the time being, though, and they have certainly made our lives more interesting.

An Evening with Taylor Swift

 I know I said recently that Garth Brooks was the best concert that I had ever been to.  At the time that was true, but I'm going to have to edit that comment now.  The best concert that I've been to is Taylor Swift's 1989 tour.  Brian gave me tickets to go see Tay Tay for my birthday back in December.  I like a lot of Taylor's songs and thought it'd be a good show, but I was not prepared for how awesome it really was.  Oh. My. Stars.  It was great.  We saw the show in Philly in a sold-out stadium with 50,000 fans.  Brian got us two tickets on the floor level- not far from the run-way platform.  Apparently Taylor is from Pennsylvania because she referred to this as her "home town concert" on several occasions.  She also said that she wanted to "surprise" the crowd so she brought out that band Echosmith in the middle of the concert and they sang that "Cool Kids" song (video below).  She also brought out Cara Delevingne and Mariska Hargitay to walk the run way during that "Style" song.  These were just a few of the things that made the concert great.  She also had great dancers, smoke, fireworkss, and a run-way platform that lifted up into the air and spun around.  Brian said that each performance was like watching a different music video.  It was really good.  The coolest thing of all, though, were the bracelets.  They gave each concert-goer a bracelet that was programmed to light up in time with the music.  It turned four different colors.  The colors matched the mood of the song.  I thought that this was one of the coolest things that I'd ever seen.  Both Brian and I enjoyed the concert immensely.