My parents had a few families over for a Fourth of July bash.  We swam and a lot and ate WAY too much delicious food.  

Lucy snapped some pictures of the family and the boys for us in our Fourth of July gear.  I made Captain American shirts & new shorts for the boys.  It was my first attempt at making pants!  

One Year Down

Sam finished up his first year at Kellogg a few weeks ago and we promptly took off for Dallas for the summer.  We are so happy to be here with my family for a couple months.  Sam seems to be enjoying his job.  Parker is in heaven getting all this attention and swimming everyday!  Lincoln still isn't so sure.  I think he thinks I'm going to take off and leave him here, so most of the time he clings to me.  I will update with pictures soon (I guess I have to take some first), but here are some of our last days in Evanston.

sandy watermelon

one of our favorite ladies

I love how all the kids are doing their own little jobs

boys

after playing at two beaches in one day, the boys fell asleep on the 4 block ride home

Kellogg end of year BBQ

Some of our Kellogg friends from the ward: Sheets, LeBarons, us, Smiths, Nielsons.  I'm sad looking at this because we are the only family coming back next year!  Wahhh.  *thanks Nielsons for the photo!

Thirty

Happy Birthday to my sweetheart!  I love you!!

Toes in the sand

Our day at the beach...

Adler Planetarium

Here are some pictures from when we went to the planetarium a few weeks ago with friends.  This is the first time we'd been and it was fun!  Most of the museum is way over the kids' heads (and mine), but they did have a fun children's section with tunnels to climb in and a space shuttle to explore.  But the best part is the view outside!

Kids minus Emmett.  Sadly this is the best picture we got of all of them!

On the street where we live

Want to go on a walk with us?  We had the most glorious weekend, which spilled over to a perfect Monday (can Mondays be perfect?).  The weather warmed up for us for a few days and we were able to spend lots of time outdoors.  I haven't really taken any pictures of our city, so I snapped some on our walk today.  It's really weird taking pictures of other people's houses, I hope no one saw me.  These first few house pictures are of homes on our street as we walk towards the lake.

This is our house, isn't the backyard amazing?  Just kidding.  This one is about one block east of us. Sam and I always wish we lived here because it has a huge yard and the house is cute to boot!

 

But I L-O-V-E this one!  It's a historical building in Evanston and was built in 1928.  I adore it and want to move in.

Sorry about the tree, you can only see half of it.  This is the Dawes House.  It's now home to the Evanston History Center and is open for tours.   Come visit us and I'll take you there.

I think this yellow house is cute, but I didn't get a good picture of the front because the homeowners were outside talking to the landscapers.  But here's the view from the street.

And this is the end our street!  Sam and I laugh that this is probably the closest we'll ever live to the beach (4 blocks!).   Too bad, but we're going to take full advantage of it while we're here.  

This is the entrance to our little beach.  It always surprises me how beautiful the water in Lake Michigan is.

Once we reached the lake we headed north up to campus.  There is a fabulous running/biking trail that runs all the way up to the school along the lake.  Here is a view of Chicago once you reach Northwestern (looking South).

Students enjoying the sunshine.  Reminds me of the quad on BYU only more awesome.

This is the alumni building at Northwestern.  Beautiful.

After we met Sam at school we headed downtown to get some frozen yogurt.

Parker enjoying his chocolate yogurt.  He wouldn't share; only let me eat the strawberries out of his bowl.