what a week!

 Every year I tell myself around March that we should just have a mellow, lazy summer and every year around July I realize I failed. It's not that we aren't relaxing and having fun....in fact we are loving our non-scheduled days and doing super fun things from our summer bucket list. But, in the midst of all those activities...we had an incredibly busy week!
After coming home from a week at Seabrook I had to turn around and work the next day and then Matt and I spent the following day car shopping. No one really likes car shopping. I mean, coming home with a new car is always great but the actual process is just ridiculous. Hours upon hours of research before even going to a dealership only to then have to talk and talk and talk with the salesperson. We hadn't planned on buying a new car this year but after a few things started breaking down on our Pilot we realized we needed something sooner than we had planned. We were pretty particular with what we wanted but knew finding those things in a newer, used car wouldn't be easy. But, after a lot of negotiating we stuck to our budget and came home with......a minivan! We are officially middle aged parents with a large family and a sporty minivan.

My before picture as we dealt with car salesmen who didn't want to budge on their price.

 And the after when we got the deal we hoped for sitting in our new van!

 The kids are pretty excited about it too. The novelty of sliding doors and push button screens is pretty fantastic and there has been lots of arguing over whose turn it is to close the doors. ha!

 After that fun adventure I prepped for the week ahead. We came home from vacation to find a bounty of delicious fruits and veggies from our mini garden. I love when the kids can just run outside and pick a few things for an afternoon snack. I'd love to have something much larger but for now, this will have to do.

 Summer is best spent in the backyard and that's what we've been doing. Lots of swinging, pool time and sports. Simon can't get enough baseball right now. He'd swing that little bat for hours if you kept pitching the ball to him!
And, simple dinners - thank goodness for pizza night! I even had the kids make the whole thing so I could get a few things done around the house. It was delicious!

 The next day we headed up to the beach house for the 4th of July. We made it just in time for the 3rd annual neighborhood parade. Each year I think we've improved on our decor and attire. I have to say they were pretty darn cute.

 The parade was the highlight of the day - there were probably 3x as many people walking the parade as there were watching but the kids didn't care. They had so much fun seeing everyone dressed up and loved climbing in the firetruck at the end of the route.

 The rest of the day was spent napping, playing and going for a family walk before staying up super late to watch fireworks over the water. The fireworks are always so beautiful and we love being able to just cozy up on the couch inside and look out the windows.

 The kids lasted until 10pm before we sent them off to bed (so I could go to bed too!)

 The next day was a quick turnaround to come home and have Matt leave for a long weekend to attend a friends wedding in the midwest. The kids always have such a hard time the first day he leaves so I try to make it a fun day to keep their minds off of missing Daddy. Swimming at our local pool and a park picnic for dinner was perfect!

 Can we just stop and see how tall Carter has gotten this past year?!? My 7 year old is growing way too fast!

 Now that the weekend is here I'm looking forward to a beach day, trip to the farmer's market and maybe even some berry picking before Matt comes home and we prep for a much simpler week ahead. Happy July!