Happy 4th of July

Happy 4th of July everyone.  We are celebrating today and tomorrow at home.  It's not suppose to be the best weather.  Yesterday we packed up the van and celebrated with family and friends.  My dad's soon to be wife Deb's sister Denise and her fiance Tim threw a party at their vacation home on Lake Mendota in Madison.  The food was amazing!  Denise literally had a storage container FULL of cut fresh fruit.  There were brats and hamburgers for lunch with all the fixings like pasta salad, potato salad, veggies and fruit, desserts.   For dinner there were steaks, fixings and desserts.  They had 5 enormous coolers full of every kind of beverage...a variety of beers, pepsi and coke products in small bottles, water, vitamin water...it was crazy the lengths they went through to have 50 of their family and friends over.  The house was gorgeous.  At 9:30, everyone grabbed a spot in the yard to watch the Rhythm and Booms fireworks.  Those were awesome.  We couldn't see a few because of some trees in the way but all in all, it was a blast.  We got some sun and some mosquito bites.  We stayed the night in a hotel more for convenience of not having to fight the traffic and driving home at 11 at night.  My dad and Deb reserved 3 hotel rooms.  During the party, Deb's son Robbie and daughter Casey showed up unexpectedly.  My dad, Deb, Casey and Deb's granddaughter Kristen stayed in a room, Deb's other daughter Amy, her boyfriend Terry and Robbie stayed in another room.  While me, Kris, Troy, Rylee, Scott and Aubrey took the 3rd room. It was a gorgeous hotel.  Troy and Rylee were awake for most of the day with 1 nap on the ride to Madison.  Thus, at 10:30 we had 2 tired kiddos.   Thank goodness for blackout curtains.  The kids woke at 7 and we decided to take a dip in the pool then.  We were back and showered by 8.  The pool was cold and neither Troy nor Rylee enjoyed it at all!   This was Rylee's first time in the pool.  Troy hates the pool, always had.  We have to find a program around the area that has some kind of pool introduction course to help make them more comfortable with water.  We packed up and went out for breakfast, then headed home.  We thought about a trip to the zoo but we have a certain 2 year old who's ears apparently quit working sometime late afternoon yesterday.  We were tired of having to deal with that and decided that going to the zoo would probably be more hassle than anything and we didn't have our stroller.  I am sure they have ones to rent there but Troy's attitude was what made the deciding factor.  It was a quiet ride home as Troy, Rylee and I all slept the entire way.  The van is amazing by the way.  It fit so much stuff in there.  We packed a medium sized cooler, suitcase, pack n play, 2 adult bag chairs, 1 child bag chair, portable highchair, bag of linens, bag of food, 2 life jackets and a plant all in the back...we didn't have to fold a seat or anything.  That's amazing!  We will definitely never outgrow this vehicle.