4th of July in Pleasanton

Right after I heard that my sister Gina and her fam were making the drive down from WA, I knew I was gonna convince Mike into driving us up to the bay area (& by "convince" I mean manipulate & fast talk). My sister Krista and her fam were on board, so Kim and her fam agreed to host us all! Lucky them!!!

It was a fabulous long weekend of swimming, sliding, eating, shopping, fireworks, & tons of good gab. I'm still recovering, particularly from the "accidental" groping from my used-to-be-favorite-brother-in-law. Yup. That's right. He grabbed the girls while hugging me from behind during the fireworks. He claims it all happened so fast he didn't realize what he did, but me thinks it's pay back for when I accidentally put my hand on his knee. Honestly, it was an accident. I was trying to prevent his son from falling off the bench and put my arm out to stop it. Can I help it if his knee was there?

Anyway...

Unfortunately Mike got sick, but lucky for him there was plenty to entertain the boys and I so we let him sleep in 'til noon each day. You couldn't drag Max off the slide once he got the courage to go down. Pretty much everyone had to take 15-20 turns going down with him. You'll get the idea from the small sampling of pics below how obsessed he was. Then he got the courage to go on his own & try jumping in. Thank goodnesss he tuckered out after 4 hrs.

I love how Jared (top middle pic) is so serious

about his job of helping Max down.

He wanted a piece of cheesecake in return for "babysitting".

Tate got in on some of the leisure activities by floating around in the kiddie area. There were plenty of pop-in visits from his cousins to keep him happy.

"fireword scaaaaary Mommie".

I think he was using it as an excuse to cuddle his cousin Whitnie.

It was so fun to see them all. I can hardly wait for the official reunion in August!