Summer Vacation

This summer is flying by and we have been so busy, I've really lost track of time. It has been quite a few days since my last posting but, I'm back on it now! We headed down to Florida for a few days of sun. If you can believe this, Florida was 10 degrees cooler than Ohio the week we were gone. It was nice to cool off and enjoy the ocean breeze! We also took in a few beautiful sunsets.

As always, as soon as we get to our hotel, we run to the beach just to feel the sand. This girl loves, loves, loves the ocean and the beach!

The water was extremely warm. It felt like were were going into a hot tub!

The water was so clear we saw reef sharks, eels, stingrays and a lots of fish. In fact, one day the hotel encouraged us not to go in the ocean due to the influx of these creatures. Supposedly there was an excess of algae which causes a lack of oxygen in the water for the fish so they head towards the shoreline to get oxygen. Interesting!!!

Hanging with the teenagers.

Lots of turtles were laying eggs in the sand. They are very protected and always marked off with yellow tape. This one was not laying eggs but, just having a little green snack! We are back home enjoying our last month of summer.

Lemonade Stand

What a beautiful day for a Lemonade Stand! We started by making our signs last week and the cookies and pink lemonade last night. I made some bubble letters for the sign and Dawson did the rest! I noticed a big D and a hand print added to the sign. Of course I made another sign and posted it close by. It included the fact that we would be donating our money to "One of a Kind Pets." This is a local animal shelter we like to visit and play with the kittens!

We had our cash register and pitcher of lemonade ready to go!

Some chocolate chip cookies which by the way, sold quickly!!!!

First, we had to taste the product. Yes, she approved!

Our first customer.......

Putting the cash in the register was probably the best part of the lemonade stand.

And lastly, counting the money. We had quite a successful day! It was surprising how much money we made. We will be taking 90% of the money to the animal shelter this week and putting 10% in the piggy bank. What a great learning experience!!!

Festivities and the Fourth

Happy Fourth of July

It was a busy weekend full of festivities, family and nonstop fun! We spent lots of nights by the fire making s'mores and lighting sparklers. We made the whole weekend the Fourth of July and did sparklers nightly!

Fresh from a bath, we headed outside for some sparklers. As you can see, her hair is still wet.

Grammy likes sparklers too!

Every time we lit a sparkler, Dawson was just full of smiles!

One day, we headed down to a park with our old bread to feed the ducks. There is a playground, kid rides and some hungry ducks!

and, they have a concession stand. This is Dawson's first snow cone. It was a hot day and this really hit the spot!

On the Fourth, we put our hats on and got ready for the golf cart parade...always a hit with Dawson!

After the parade, we snacked on some red, white and blue jello cups. These were really good!

We had some fun with these light up snakes. You light these black pellets and out comes a giant snake made of ashes. She loved doing these in the driveway. Again and again and again!

And when you put two on top of each other, a bigger snake is made! Anyone remember doing these in the past? We did them all the time growing up!