4th of July

For the 4th of July this year, we were invited down to Springfield, IL where some of my (Rachel's) family friends live. Colin's friend Dan and his family live on Lake Springfield and always have a big party every year with friends and family from Springfield and the Chicago area.

We drove to Springfield on Friday and met my mom and sis at the hotel where we were staying. After we all met up there, we headed over to the Short's house and got to meet my brother's girlfriend, Amanda, for the first time. They and a bunch of the other college kids had been there since the night before. That night was the 4th and so we headed to the lake's point to watch the fireworks which were a mediocre display at best. I'm not a huge fan of fireworks to begin with...I think they're pretty overrated. But it was fun to be there with my family.

On Saturday, we got up and thank goodness, there was a Starbuck's right down from our hotel. So we stopped there on our way to the Short's house. We spent the afternoon jet skiing and tubing on the boat and eating and hanging out. The weather couldn't have been better.

Joe and Colin on the boat

Saturday evening was the big party. There were over 100 people there and Jamie's favorite part of the evening...a DJ. I even duped him into dancing at the end of the evening because the song "The Last Dance" came on which starts off slow and then speeds up in the middle of the song. He loved me for that. =)

My sister Mandy, and her bf Matt

My brother Colin and his new gf Amanda

On Sunday we went back over to do some more jet skiing and tubing. I really wanted to go water skiing because I haven't done that in years but the lake was too choppy. Jamie had never jet skiied before and discovered he really liked it. In fact, on our drive home back to Des Moines that evening he talked about wanting to buy a jet ski and asked me how much I thought they cost?? (If you're wondering, they range in price from $4000-12,000) We won't be buying a jet ski anytime soon-there really aren't many great bodies of water here in the great state of Iowa.