Smith Mountain Lake with the Cresses!

We had the best time up at Smith Mountain Lake with Kerry, Brad, Caleb and Kenzie!  It was so relaxing and we love any time we get to spend with their family.  Caleb and Emery play together so well and we spent almost all of our time in the water enjoying the beautiful weather!

Their neighbors invited us over for dinner on Saturday night and had some delicious food together!

The weekend went by so quickly.  Will is already looking forward to going up to SML next year when he'll be getting in that beautiful clear water!

Thank you again Kerry and Brad for inviting us up for the weekend.  We had a wonderful time!

Leah's 31st Birthday!

I had a wonderful 31st birthday! Emery and Kyle both insisted on celebrating all weekend long :)  I woke up on Saturday to this beautiful view: (Fun fact: These flowers are from the shop that Kyle bought from for our engagement proposal!  Love wild flowers!)
Saturday afternoon we ate a picnic lunch and hiked around Jetton lake... one of my favorite family activities.  Kyle then surprised me with a ticket to JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE!  WHAT!!

I went with his coworker, Tara, and we had the best time together.  Our seats were amazing and we both knew every song-- a great great night.

His stage came out over the audience and stopped literally so close to our seats.  So awesome.

He is such talented musician and dancer.  His background dancers were all so good too, I loved watching them!

Sunday (my actual birthday) we went for a family lunch at Cantina and came home to home made heath bar ice-cream pie.  Oh both were so delicious!

My little helper blowing out the candles with me:

Such a great birthday!

Boone for July 4th!

While the guys were camping in Black Mountain, us girls (and Will) were having a fabulous time in Boone!  We had one day with Dad before he headed over to meet the other guys-- Emery was soaking in Grandpa time!

And Will too!

We had awesome weather all week and Mom was such a help, as always, with the kids.  Emery and I even snuck away a couple times to do special things just the two of us while Mom snuggled with Will.  Such a great time!

Milo has always had a nickname of "Nana"-- he is obsessed with babies!

Vacation naps together are always the best :)

One thing I wanted to let Emery do was float down the river in Valle Crucis.  She had a blast!!

We had so much fun celebrating July 4th up there too.  Mom brought up the cutest dress for Emery and we headed to Banner Elk to watch their parade and then hung out in the park literally the rest of the day.

And had to do some sparklers that night too, to celebrate!

I love anytime I get to spend with my Mom, but getting her all to myself at the cabin was truly special!  Thank you for all the delicious meals and ways that you helped me with both kiddos all week, Mom.  Love you!

Black Mountain Camping!

Kyle, Nick, and my Dad all went up to Black Mountain to visit Pop Pop and Grammy over 4th of July weekend.  Pop Pop (91 yrs old) wanted to go camping with them on his property, and I know it meant a lot to him that the guys made it happen.  They camped, did projects for Pop Pop during the day and cooked all their meals on the campfire.  Pretty cool memories for sure!

Keeping cool this summer!

Since we opted to not join our neighborhood pool this summer, we've been finding plenty of other ways to keep cool!  Trying out new splash parks with friends has been a blast!

Emery and Nora-- definitely best buds!

And one day we did a group playdate with Hailey and Nora-- what a treat!  

We met Merrin, Lauren and Woods over in Boiling Springs for a day at the YMCA pool.  It's so awesome with a huge slide and a splash park area along with the pool.  The girls had so much fun (and so did their mommies & brothers).  Love hanging out with them!

Had to snap a pic of the boys!

And lastly we've been running our sprinkler system to keep our grass alive and Emery has been having a blast running through them.  Love all these pics!

"On your mark-- get set--- GO"

It's hard to believe the summer is already over, man how that flew by!