Fourth of July Weekend

Matt and I spent the long weekend down in St. Pete. We drove down Thursday night after Matt got off work and spent Friday with my parents. Friday morning I went with mom to see Grandma while Matt went to visit his Grandpa who was admitted into the hospital Thursday. Matt saw a huge improvement in Gramps Saturday after he started IV antibiotics Friday. Friday night Mom and Dad took us to the Thai restaurant, which is a bit of a family joke because they used to go there a lot more and they would always take Lisa and Erik when they came down. This was only our second time eating there. Mom made us french toast Friday and Saturday mornings, so we were ready to head to our next round of visits Saturday.

We went back to see Gramps Saturday morning. He was in good spirits and also had a good breakfast. We went to Wendy's with Matt's mom, aunt and grandma. We dropped Mimi off at the hospital and then Matt and I headed over to see Jonathan, Chat, Mia and Nathan. This is my 3rd year seeing Jonathan and Chat on July 4th. We had fun playing with the kids and catching up with the adults. Their apartment has really come together since I was down last month. Apparently we just missed my dad as he was heading over for dinner because we were going to Mimi and Gramps house for dinner.

Matt's mom bought hamburgers and hot dogs to grill, along with chips and desserts. Patrick, Mariruth and Caitlin (Matt's brother and family) had flown in from their vacation in Hawaii, and Mimi, Monett and Gary (Matt's aunt and uncle), Kim (cousin), Brian (cousin) and Jamie (girlfriend) were also there. We ate and headed back to the hospital to see Gramps in his new room (out of ICU). Patrick and Mariruth headed to Barbara's because they were tired and didn't want Caitlin to be a bad guest. We walked to the beach from Barbara's and Brian and Gary lit fireworks. We only had one incident where people behind us were not being smart and their firework fell over and shot toward condos. The fireworks that were being lit on the beach were more like professional fireworks, not the little ones we lit when we were younger. For a while we laid on a blanket and the fireworks were going off right above us. That was really neat, though I was a little nervous that we were going to get burned by falling embers.

Sunday we drove to Matt's dad's house. Brittany is home from college for the summer. We went to lunch after Pat and Mariruth joined us and then back to the house for a visit. Matt's uncle Rick drove down to see everyone and the baby. We headed home around 3 and made pretty good time. It was a fun weekend!

Here are a few pictures I took. The camera battery was low, so it wouldn't take any using a flash, and we didn't take many. Sorry the ones we did take are blurry. The video is of Kim and Caitlin playing the piano at Mimi and Gramps.