(A Belated) Happy Fourth!

Have I mentioned on here that I am SO EXCITED to have Kelsey & her new husband Brent living so close?? I haven't?? Well, I am beyond thrilled that the new Mr. & Mrs. Irwin now live about 2.5 hours from where I sit, and we had the pleasure of having them here in Nashville with us to celebrate the 4th of July! Brent & Kels came down Thursday evening & were able to stay until Sunday morning, so we packed a lot in to those few days. Probably more than they are accustomed to...and probably less than we typcially shoot for...but that seems to be the difference between Irwins & Johnstons :-) Nevertheless, we enjoyed every minute!

On Friday, we headed up to Gallatin, which is a smaller town about 40 minutes outside of Nashville. We have a family friend that has a beautiful home there on some gorgeous property, and Dan periodically makes the trip out to help with some of the landscaping & upkeep. Anyway, they were out of town this weekend and we asked if we could borrow their back porch - seriously - because it's amazing. So we got out of the city and enjoyed the lulling of the waterfall in their backyard.
Dan & I decided it was finally time to invest in something we've wanted for a long time now - a Smokey Joe charcoal grill! So we grabbed one at the local Wannaberts (that's Walmart, by the way...I think my sister use to call it that when we were little) before heading out and decided shish-kabobs were appropriate for the innagural grilling.

I must admit - they turned out pretty yummy! We all enjoyed a great 4th-of-July picnic on the beautiful deck, soaking in as much peace & quiet as we could before heading back in to Nashville that evening.

After a pit stop at the Dairy Queen to try the new GirlScout Cookie Blizzards (AMAZING, in case you were wondering), we headed back into the big city & enjoyed a great firework display from the parking lot of our campus...a safe distance from all of the crazies downtown :-)

For some reason I seemed to abandon my camera for the majority of the weekend...I don't even have a picture of Kelsey & me together...but I swear we had fun! We were asked to house/dog-sit for some friends of ours, so we also were able to enjoy a little extra space than our "cozy" apartment has to offer. It was fun to be in a home for a couple of days - thanks Amy & Ben (& Scruffy!).

All in all, we had a wonderful time. It was fun to be with my sister on a holiday as we share many of the same memories and traditions. There aren't many people who feel like a 4th is incomplete without a shot from a musket & a tri-corn hat! We both talked about watching Grandpa light some crazy-big firework he had bought (because Grandpa always bought the biggest & best) & and run back towards us - me squeeling with giggles & Kelsey plugging her ears. Where does the time go? This year we sat hand-in-hand with our husbands, talking about years gone by and years to come. Times have changed, but at least I know this - we'll always be sisters :-)

We're so glad you guys made the trip - we had a blast!