happy birthday, america!

we spent the fourth of july up at lake keowee in south carolina with stacey's family. we drove up friday and stayed until tuesday. it was our first family appearance as husband and wife, and zach fit right in! stacey's grandma has three children- cindy (stacey's mom), tim and patty. we stayed at grandma jacob's house for the weekend, and uncle tim's house had the rest of the family down the street. we had a great time boating, riding on the jet skis, tubing, wake boarding, playing cards, watching movies, setting off fireworks, swimming, floating, skiing and, of course, eating! uncle tim is a wonderful cook and manned the grill all weekend. his girls, emily and rachel, came up from atlanta, and aunt patty, uncle paul, katy, paul jr, alex and michael drove down from maryland. we missed mom and tom, but they were having a great time on their european cruise!

of course we had some fireworks. the older guys shot off the big fireworks, and everyone else enjoyed a sparkler or two.


tubing was fun for everyone! michael got a mild ride with katy and rachel.


the older kids got a rough ride. katy and stacey tried their best to hang on!


alex showing off and getting some air. uncle tim wasn't able to throw him off!



the trademark "timbo landing" involves being thrown off the tube by uncle tim- here is stacey's graceful landing.


paul, jr got up on skis! stacey stayed in the water to give him some last minute coaching, but he was up like a pro on his first try!

he even tried "slalom" skiing on his first run!


uncle paul had his turn on the skis and did a great job! he is eager and ready to try slalom skiing now.


here's rachel on the slalom. hard to believe that stacey was teaching her how to ski about 9 years ago. we are getting old!


skiing is what stacey likes doing best.


stacey and rachel went tandem skiing one morning.


zach is a pro on the wakeboard. as you can see, he got some good air but wasn't quite able to land that one!



we loved spending time with grandma! thanks for letting us stay with you!

aunt patty and uncle paul were spectators for most of the weekend, but at least they varied from where they watched.


and, of course, we had a lot of fun taking pictures with our camera! zach took this great shot of the lake early in the morning. the undisturbed water had a haze resting on top.


thanks for a great weekend! we loved spending time with the family. we can't wait for another vacation, but now it's back to the real world!