4th of July and other stuff

We spent (part of) the long Independence Day weekend with Cy's family on Lake Murray.  Gemma hasn't been sleeping well away from home lately, so we made it a short trip: we drove up Saturday morning during Gemma's morning nap time, then drove back Sunday afternoon during Gemma's afternoon nap time.  Even though it was a quick trip, we had a lot of fun.

We were able to take a tour of the new house (we hadn't seen it since they were laying the foundation) and finally get a feel for the layout.  It is going to be a really nice house!

We of course enjoyed splashing around in the lake some, and had a highly entertaining dinner at a nearby place called Spinner's.  I say highly entertaining because there was an extremely sketchy local band named Cash Money belting out old favorites such as "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay" in a truly awful falsetto.  Also Gemma was removing all my French fries from my basket one at a time and dropping them in my purse (I found a petrified French fry buried at the bottom of my purse a day or two later):

After dinner, we had some cookie cake and presents for Cy.  He was serenaded with "Happy Birthday" several times during the weekend.  On Saturday night, we dragged some chairs to the new house to try to watch the fireworks.  We ended up not being able to see at all through the trees, so gave up pretty fast and went to bed.  Gemma had fun playing with Noah and Liam while we were there too.

We spent the actual 4th of July (Cy's birthday) just taking it easy at home.  After years of having his birthday on the 4th, Cy pretty much hates all 4th-related activities (such as fireworks), so we generally try to avoid them.  He said that the relaxing day at home was perfect and just what he wanted.  Gemma got all decked out in a cute patriotic halter dress for the special day (I finally got an iPhone and I am addicted to Instagram!):

In other news, Gemma was officially 14 months old as of yesterday and wow is she growing up fast.  She is learning tons of new stuff every day.  For example, I haven't been feeling well (as an aside: I left my bottle of allergy pills on the table at Spinner's after giving them to Gemma to play with during dinner and have now developed a gross cold/sinus thing) so instead of kissing Gemma when she went down for her nap, I blew her a kiss instead.  Without hesitation, she put her own little hand to her mouth and blew me a kiss back!  It was so sweet!  She has also gotten very good at finding your nose if you ask her to.  She still is not walking but I know that it will happen when she is ready. 

I took this growth picture of her last night right after she finished her bath (hence the crazy hair).  Apparently the bath got her really wound up, so I had to snap this picture very quickly in between her rocking in the chair and throwing her giraffe on the floor.  Good times.