Whew... A Whirl Wind Weekend!

Wow -- we had a GREAT weekend -- 4th of July festivities, picnic at the park and Tall Ships of Tacoma! The 4th of July was spent enjoying some good family time and then heading over to our friends house for dinner and fireworks. Holly really experienced this for the first time this year, she really liked it but the late hours made it hard to keep up. She fizzled out and we headed home for some rest... in which Bryan & I sat out another hour or so and watched them from our little bluff. We had a wonderful night, great company, an excellent dinner and good memories! Here is a photo of Holly & I with her very first sparkler... which I'll be honest, she wasn't too sure of and passed on a second. Oh well, maybe next year!

Saturday we headed out to Titlow Beach & Park for a bit of beach combing and a picnic to visit with friends! One in particular we haven't seen in over a year, which was really nice! The weather really warmed up by that evening and Holly had a ton of fun playing on the big toys. We also packed a container of great park toys and we brought that out later one - nothing like a good game of frisbie or soccer ball around a huge park. We stayed pretty late and had nothing but a good time! Earlier in the day the tide was out pretty low so we hit the beach and searched for some critters. We found sea stars, snails, tons of crabs of all sized and kinds, sea anemones, some kind of eel like fish and more! It was mucky, mushy, muddy & fun! Good thing we brought extra shoes & clothes.

Then on Sunday we headed out to see the Tall Ships in Tacoma for the day. This was very fun! Even though it did become a very large crowd and the lines were long, we kept on and it was worth it. We did the big ticket tour and were able to visit quiet a few ships, especially in the time we had with Holly being on board with us. We boarded ships and were able to check them out up close and hear/learn of the history of some. Some are replicas that were created for movies... like the Bounty which was used in Pirates of the Carribean 2. Holly also was able to check out a couple of kid items and make her own boat and sailing hat, we checked out a great maratime exhibit geared towards kids and some neat small wooden boats (these caught Bryan's eye!). Here are some neat shots to share - if you have never done this... it's wonderful!

Oh, and we got NEW living room furniture!!! Yeah! Awe.... one busy, fun & wonderful weekend!!!