a happy 4th

We hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July weekend! We headed out Thursday night for a long weekend here:

I love being able to pack for a family of 5 in this:

and seeing this:

unless you are in just the right spot!

Friday morning, Banks, Mary Reese and I headed out for a little nature walk {all I kept hearing was "How much longer?" and "I am sweating!" and "When are we going back to the cabin?"}:

in search of these {with the hopes of a cobbler for dessert}:

our dreams were crushed when all the blackberries to be found were these:

but we did end up with a nice bouquet of these for our table:

We had a nice relaxing weekend eating some wonderful food:

and swimming in the lake:

with 2 short boating trips: {Owen was fine with the green floatation device around the dock...he hated the life jacket he had to wear on the boat which kind of reminded me of a summer version of Ralphie's little brother on A Christmas Story!}

and enjoying these:

The only mishap of the weekend occurred on our way back in from our 2nd boating trip. We were rounding the bend home when we saw this on the gas gage: Thankfully we weren't too far from home and some nice fellow lake friends gave us one of these back to the dock: