Happy 4th of July!

This year, Mom and Duane invited opened up their place out at Birch Bay Leisure Park to anyone who wanted to stop by. So, once Jason got home from work, we loaded up and headed out. The girls swam (for about 10 minutes...it was cold and raining) and the kids played with Paige and my cousin's little girl, Samantha.

It was mainly family from the Silves and Groen families. We all had a great time just hanging out and chatting!

Duane barbecued burgers for everyone and then those of us that were there all brought salads or whatever else it was that we wanted to share that day. We had quite the spread of food!

The girls didn't really leave Paige's side, especially Miss Alyssa!

Once dinner was cleaned up, some of us walked down to the beach. We had fun trying to get family pictures and pictures of the kids. The kids had more fun searching for "treasures" to bring home.

Once we got back to the beach house, Brenna was in the kitchen helping Grammy get a dessert ready. Grammy put her in charge of decorating. She was suppose to create a flag out of berries. She looks so big here!

We had to get a picture of the dessert before serving it. I think she did a great job!

It was a great day to just sit and relax. We ended up going home before the fireworks started down at the beach. Jason had to get up very early and was exhausted! Thankfully, we have neighbors that put on a pretty good show so the kids didn't miss out on seeing any of the big fireworks. We got home and unloaded the van and then sat out in our front yard and watched the few different "shows" going on around the neighborhood.