Our Fabulous July Fourth Weekend

It's taken me too long to get my hands (hard drive) on the photos from last weekend, but I'm finally ready to share. I wish I had more! I thought we took a ton, but I guess not.

We drove two hours south to Tucson, to celebrate July Fourth with my whole family. My sister lives there, but she and her husband stayed at the hotel with us just to feel like they were getting a way a little. In fact, her husband's whole family was in Tucson for a visit, so the whole gaggle of us took over the resort.

We stayed at the JW Marriott Starr Pass--one of our few favorite hotels in Tucson. I also found out that they're on Twitter -- @JWStarrPass. They have a large pool area, several bars in the pool areas (awesome), and a fun water slide and small lazy river to go tubing in. It was a ton of fun for Jenna, who was in the pool practically all weekend, it seemed. The resort was at capacity, and the pools were crazy busy, so the twins didn't get to enjoy their head floats at all (there can't be splashing or many waves when they're in the head floats)

We ravaged the breakfast buffet each morning--that place knows how to make pancakes. We also enjoyed the resort's BBQ buffet both nights that we were there. I got a small Eegee's fix (just a sandwich--but so awesome) for lunch. The twins napped like champs and slept at night like champs, too. Plenty of adult beverages were appreciated by all the adults all day and night on the Fourth. And everyone applied enough sunscreen, so we have no painful burn stories to share--woo hoo!

We didn't get any great pictures of the fireworks, or the kids watching them, so you'll have to use your imagination. But the twins LOVED the fireworks on Saturday night, and kept shouting, "More! More!" long after the show was over.


At the pool:

Right before Fireworks--one tired 5 year old, and a blue-faced little boy who dove into a patriotically frosted (read: blue) cupcake.

Thank the heavens for Bumbo chairs and portable DVD players! This is why we can never fly anywhere--too much random stuff to bring with us, wherever we go!

The JW Marriott there has a Nickolodeon theme nearly every weekend all summer. The kids get to meet Dora and Spongebob in the lobby in the mornings--a big hit with our kids. These pics were taken as we were loading up the van to drive home on Sunday.