4th of July Weekend / Ben's Birthday

First of all, a programming note for those of you who care. If you'll notice on my righthand sidebar, there is a little Flickr icon that flashes up my recent picture uploads. This is where I will be posting all pictures from now on that aren't on the blog. If you click on one of the pictures, it will take you into my photostream and you can view all my photos. But add comments there if you do ... please please. I like comments!

Okay, back to the weekend recap. So if you read my blog on Thursday, you already know that was Ben's 31st birthday. We, along with a group of our friends, celebrated by going to the Braves game on Thursday night! (Thanks to everyone who came out to spend the evening with Ben) The night ended up with a W from the Bravos and a fireworks show that we watched from the parking lot! I think everyone had a good time and I know Ben enjoyed his day.

I got up early on Friday morning to head up to the lake while Ben was scheduled to play golf for the afternoon before meeting my family up at the lake that evening. We got there around lunchtime, and immediately went outside to enjoy the sun. We were so lucky because the weather was perfect -- sunny but not terribly hot. Ben arrived up there early enough to fish off the dock with Dave (brother-in-law) while the rest of us relaxed a bit. Because Ben's birthday was Thursday, we all went out to dinner to celebrate that night.

Ben gets to see Ellie fairly often, but this is the first weekend he has really spent with her in a while. Because of this, he spent lots of time playing with her and making her laugh ... we took a few pictures of the two of them this weekend as well.

On Saturday, we spent the day on the lake -- swimming, riding SeaDoos, listening to JackAss neighbor cuss out his grandchildren, fishing, and boating. Before we left to go up to the lake, Ben made me promise to ride Big Mable with him. The first time I rode on Mable, I fell off and seriously thought I was going to lose my vision. I had a headache for 3 days after my big fall! I think the expression on my face in this photo shows you how terrified I was.

Sooooo, after I screamed my head off, Ben let me get off and was able to talk Dave into riding with him. They had fun .....

until .....

they were thrown off!!!!!! Ben is still hurting from that fall, so I think its safe to say he now understands my hatred for the thing.

Oh, and I don't want to forget to show you this badassery that I saw out on the lake. How awesome is this houseboat!! Multi-colored vinyl siding? Check! SuperSweet palm tree art on the outside? Check! Man wearing jorts inside the floating trailer? Check! Plastic slide attached to the boat? Check!

Who wouldn't love a beaut like this???

That night, we grilled out at the house and went down to the dock to watch the fireworks. Our lake neighbor (not JackAss ... another neighbor) has this awesome point lot, and does a huge fireworks show every 4th of July. You can sorta see it in this photo, but there were probably 100 boats parked out in the cove to see the show.

We capped off the night by shooting some flaming balls of our own ....

Sunday was a little overcast in the morning, but we still got in a few more hours on the lake before paking up to head home. Of course when we were about to leave the sun came out and it turned out to be a gorgeous day! Isn't that how it always happens though? I just love these lake weekends. Sad that the summer is ending so quickly!!

That's about it. All in all, a great weekend!