Fantastic Fourth

By K.J. Cardinal

Despite a rain-filled month of June, the weather FINALLY cooperated over the weekend so we could get outside to celebrate the Fourth of July.

On Saturday we headed out to Ludlow for a party at Angie's Uncle John's house. I had never been to their house before, but it was great. The inside of the house is very nice, but the outside was even better.

The pool with a sandy beach area was great, but the kids' playhouse (pictured behind Anna & Julia in the photo above) really stole the show. When I say "playhouse" I don't mean your typical plastic structure... this was a wooden house with windows and doors, shingled roof, couch, mini fridge, etc. It was sick... I'd consider moving in there if/when Angie kicks me out.

Anyway, we had a great time at John & Theresa's. Pretty much the entire Dias crew (Angie's mom's side of the family) was there and it was great to hang out. Here's a family photo op that I snapped...


We were all pretty exhausted after a long day at the party, so we decided to head back to Hudson late that night.

Yesterday morning we woke up and decided to take advantage of the good weather once again. This time, we opted to head to Hopkinton State Park.

We had never been before, but had heard good things about the place, so we packed up and headed out around 9:30 a.m.

The "beach" wasn't too impressive, but it had clean water and sand, so Anna was in her glory.

She was having a grand ole time just splashing in the small puddles on the beach and building "castles".

While I was walking around taking pictures of Anna, I decided to step in a puddle and splash her. As you can see in the photo below, I got her pretty wet, but she was less-than-impressed. I kind of felt bad, but the look on her face was so cute and she wasn't really upset, so it was all good.

After playing on the beach for a while we went for a walk/hike around the pond. When we took off walking, Anna was pretty excited so she started to run. She tripped on the uneven walkway and took a digger.

She hit her forehead on the concrete and was pretty shaken up, but she was OK. It really wasn't that big of a deal, but probably the second biggest injury of her life. I don't want to jinx it, but we've been pretty lucky in that regard so far. However, I'm foreseeing more injuries in her future now that she's climbing on anything and everything, running like a mad woman and is fearless at times.

You can kind of see the bump on her head in this photo, above her left eye, but again it wasn't that bad... looked a lot worse when it happened. Anyway, I took this photo of my girls while we were on our walk.

We left the beach and stopped at this place in Ashland called TJ's for a little lunch. They had outdoor seating and good food, so it was right up our alley. Not sure if it was because the weather was so nice, but it almost seemed like a biker hangout, which was cool with us... especially Anna, who has come to love "modecycles"... we'd love to go back with Meme & Papa sometime.

After lunch we headed home for a little more time outside. We dragged Anna around the neighborhood in her new red wagon (pictured above). Thanks John & Theresa for another great hand-me-down. Equipped with cup holders and a built in cooler... it's needless to say that Daddy and Anna with both get plenty of joy out of their new toy.

We capped off the day by having Scott over for dinner and grilling outside. We let Anna have frozen blueberries for dessert and it was quite a mess. But, a cute mess and a great way to end a great weekend with my girls.