My two shining stars!

And, yes, I realize that every picture I have taken so far with Elaina holding Lincoln, Lincoln is crying. I swear that Elaina isn't squeezing him or causing him to cry, I just have relatively poor timing when it comes to capturing them happily posing. I need to work on that.

Our 4th of July celebration was spent as a family day. An amish man that Eric has been working with on a job site had told Eric about this great auction that is held in the heart of amish country, less than an hour away from our house. The proceeds of this annual auction benefit the school system there and brings crowds from all around.

We set out early in the morning to take in the sights just as the auction was beginning. The pitfall of such a great auction for us, was that we didn't really need anything. And they had everything. The great finds were the handcrafted wooden furniture pieces. If we had any place to put another dining room table or bedroom furniture, this would have been our lucky day. The rest of the stuff was just gravy. Probably nice to have, but still not able to justify the price or throwing something out to make way for new.

While Eric snagged 3 items totalling a whopping $35 bucks, we enjoyed our family day and the kids were great. They took turns napping in the stroller and there was plenty of recreation (i.e. wooden playground sets) to keep Elaina occupied in intervals. I packed our day trip bag, prepared for anything and everything, (maybe swimming) but the weather was cold and a thunderstorm even rolled in mid-afternoon. Not quite the picture perfect day that we would have wanted. Our family time, however, was very close to perfection!