The 4th of July

We had such a fun 4th of July this year! Brian and his family, as well as Heather and Jessica (my nieces) came over to our house to BBQ, play croquet, and swim. Brian was the brave one and ventered into our back yard to start up the grill. Jake was out there for a couple of minutes and managed to get stung by a wasp. It turns out that the wasps had made their home in our grill and that Brian should have taken Jack Black's character on Kung Fu Panda! There were moves that he was making that none of us had even seen Brian do before! The food was tasted great though and we all sufficiently stuffed ourselves silly.

Afterwards we went to the Cottages Park and played Extreme Croquet. Jake and Brock teamed up together to try to beat Brian, but their divide and conquer strategy was no match for Brian's ultimate croquet skills! Brian and his family make even the most mundane game an adventure. Since it was so hot, we came back to our house and played the Wii (Guitar Hero III) while some went swimming. I loved Guitar Hero even though I was terrible at it! After everyone was done swimming and playing the Wii we had rootbeer floats to finish the day.

Its fun to have Brian, Cari and their family so close to us! As Cari jokingly said to us, they are the only ones that aren't embarrassed to be with us! (We know that they can't live without us!) It's important to have good relationships with your family members because at the end of the day, they are still the ones that want to be with you. I feel lucky to have such a great brother!