Fourth of July

Fourth of July is bigger than Christmas in our family. We took Friday off and went to the lake Thursday evening and came back early Monday morning so that we could enjoy a long holiday weekend. Our friends Jeff and Kelli got a new boat and new dock last week so we went to their place Thursday and part of Friday (sans Ryan). The new boat is awesome and we had a great sunset cruise followed by a chilled evening breaking in the new dock. After staring at a computer screen all week, there's nothing we love more than that first night at the lake sitting outside under the stars - especially if we get to spend it with our best friends. We enjoyed the rest of the weekend at our place with Steve and Jane. We also got to see lots of our friends the Riggins who were in from Tampa and are hopefully moving back soon so we can have more lake weekends together. Todd's best friend Zach Collins and his family just moved back from Tampa last week (strange, I know; we had two friends in Tampa for short-term work gigs) and are buying the place next door to us at the end of the month so they made a day-trip down on Sunday. We can't wait to have them there on the weekends!

We returned Monday and ended up getting a newer car to replace the Camry which recently started having issues after almost eight years of no trouble. We got another silver sedan but it's a little sportier than the grocery getter and has all-wheel drive which will be good for my winter trips to Topeka. We also got to see the Collins' new house in KC and are glad to have them back from Tampa. And, we finalized Ryan's child care! Starting in mid-August he'll be spending 4-5 days a week with a nice woman named Susan (our parent's age) who watches a few kids in her home in Prairie Village.

Ryan has discovered his feet and loves to play with them... almost as much as he likes chewing on his fingers. He's sitting up a little better, but not quite on his own yet. He changes everyday and is getting more and more personality. He sleeps from 9'ish to 6:30'ish about half the time and the other nights wakes up once around 5:00 or 5:30 and just requires rebinking so we're almost there but have yet to rest all night long consistently.

(Jake Riggin, Cade Riggin, Ryan, Charlie Collins)
We're already speculating about all the trouble these
four boys will get into playing together at the lake.

(with Kelli and Jeff on their new boat then on their new dock)