Sam is 11!

Our sweet Sam turned 11!  This year we surprised him a week early with a bounce house/water slide rental!

I think we managed to surprise him pretty well!  We also had a group of surprise guests that rolled in over the course of the afternoon/evening.

Aunt Philie came with a giant donut cake!

He was so thrilled that some of his friends from school came and some neighbor friends too!

Later in the day, the Bencola family showed up with their girls!

Birthday king!

In the evening, some of our family members came too, it was a great day!

Rocking his golf socks with his Arnold Palmer drink.

Lots of summer crafts.  He calls this one, "Captain America on a budget."

On his actual birthday, he wanted to spend the morning doing some fabric painting.  We had white hoodies and lots of paint.  It was so fun to see what they chose to design and how careful and thoughtful they were.  Craft projects are fun now, not just crazy disasters!

DQ ice cream cake, as requested!

They even kept adding pieces the next day, so fun.

On his last day of golf camp, they had a blast hitting water balloons instead of golf balls.

Just a cat being a cat.

Mike's buddy, Corey, drove out from Iowa for a visit.  There was much D&D playing and discussion.

Uncle Josh took Sam out to the driving range for fun this week too.

He really is the heart of our family.  Love you, sweet middle kid!

Michigan and more July fun!

We had a fantastic time in Michigan with Bamma, Josh, and Kjersten.  This year she rented a cool A frame house on sail bay and it was just perfect!

We enjoyed the bar set up in the kitchen quite a bit!

The bay area was gorgeous and we had a nice entry and pier set up.  Uncle Josh got a big pontoon boat for the whole week!

Kjersten got some boating tips (even if she really didn't need them).

Yep, I know how to slay while on vacation.  The sun shone right into the living room each morning, it was bright!

Lots of Emily snuggles!

Noah and CJ had a long kayak ride around the bay.

Double Rainbow!

Josh definitely smashed a toe and Pops sympathized by offering him a spare cane.

Having not seen most of these folks for 2 years meant catching up on growing children too.  Noah and CJ had some big growth spurts!

Maggie was a saint and kayaked around the island towing Sam and having Isaac as a passenger.

Lots of time down by the water with the rocks and the fish!

Noah and Sam both did some tubing too, here's Sam with CJ.

We celebrated some July/August bdays!

Love quality time on Diamond Lake!

We came home and Isaac had leveled up in swim lessons!

We did a trip to Brookfield Zoo.

We met up with our neighbor friends, the Bartels, too!

Sam has become a golfer!  Bampa and Uncle Josh gave him some clubs as an early birthday gift and he went out with Bampa to hit some balls!

This week, he has been doing a golf camp through the park district at Schaumburg Golf Club.

Looking good with our neighbor, Ben!

And the big news of the week was that after 22 months, Noah got his braces off!  Sticky candy and popcorn, here he comes!

Mexico 2021!

We were able to start all of our summer fun when I finally got done with my school year on June 11th!  We had some excellent weather to start off our summer of usual park hopping and reading.  Noah is off way in the background.

Then, we headed off to Mexico!  This time, we were at the Marival Distinct Resort in Nuevo Vallarta.  We arrived and decided to get right in the pool that was just outside our rooms.  The Townsends traveled with us and had a room right next door!

The main pool didn't disappoint either, cheers!

Having a pool suite was the smartest decision ever (thanks, Monica!).  The kids swam nonstop and loved it! And we could sit and enjoy our beverages all day.  It was also nice to be close to all the restaurants and such being on the lower level.

The resort was pretty awesome; not too crowded, good food and drinks and even a resident hawk named Sirius!

Lazing in the pool was our favorite activity!

Much needed vaca after the longest school year ever.  So thankful!  And loving my new shades that Philie found for me!

Rooftop dinner at the resort was great!

Sam was in his element and tried just about every seafood he could get his hands on.  This was breakfast one day!

Just a short walk away was the beach and the ocean!  The currents were strong (Sam lost his goggles and Isaac lost his resort ID bracelet), but we had so much fun playing the waves.  The beach area dedicated to the resort was awesome too!

Just off the beach there was a pool and a restaurant too.  Mike actually got sunburn on his hands because this was his position in the pool for a couple hours.

All the coladas!

One of our evenings, we headed into the boardwalk area of Puerto Vallarta for a beachside dinner.  We even saw a proposal!  Of course Sam had to try more fish.

Sunset was lovely!

We took a boat expedition to the Yalapa waterfall area, the boys all loved the boat.

The waterfall area was pretty cool!

On the boat ride back the crew put on a little Pitbull lip sync performance.  The Townsends had front seats!

Sam got himself a pretty good face of sunburn, whoopsies!

Isaac enjoyed a refined dessert of Oreo Tempura and warm milk, so fancy!

Our flight home was a bit delayed, so we didn't make it to our house until 11pm, but these guys were troopers!

The ninja cats, who hid out most of the time from folks who came to feed them while we were gone, were very happy upon our return.  Molly has spent most of the days since our return firmly in Noah's lap.  So now we rest and recover and do laundry before heading up to Michigan for a week.  Fun summer 2021, let's keep going!