Friends that are family and family that are friends

The past 3 years we lived in Germany where many of our friends turned into family - sharing holidays, swapping kids and being important parts of each others lives.  When we moved back to Virginia we are now much closer to family.  This passed weekend Uncle Wyland and Aunt Shannon, wyland and robbie spent the night with us on their way from Wilmington NC to Baltimore MD (her folks have a wonderful home that is pretty much like vacation!)  We were thrilled to have them for a night and packed in lots of cousin pool time.

Here is the trek to the wonderful Brambleton 4th of July early celebration.

The cousin's had a blast together - its funny how awkward it can be for them at first, but give them a soccer ball or some pool toys and they are fast friends.

Shane enjoyed a bit of a slushy 

This is an early photo of Drew.  He was a trooped and stayed up through the fireworks.  He fell asleep on Dad's shoulder the moment they stopped.

It was a HOT HOT night.  Funny they had these sprinklers to cool off the kiddos.

Wyland graduated high school at West Springfield and College from Mary Washington - which means he has lots of buddies in the area.  This is Caz and a fabulous link up here in Brambleton.  His wife is a blast and they have 2 young boys too.  Teresa and I's paths have crossed many times, now we are finally friends too!

These photo are out of order - but I wish there was a time stamp on this one - it would say TOO LATE - I think it was taken at 1:45 AM - yikes right?

Here are some of the dudes at the concert.

It was a great night and the morning came WAY too early.  We all managed to carve out a bit of an additional nap throughout the morning as the kids enjoyed some time together.  

We took one more dip in the pool

Someone even managed to nap in the pool - I love the pool so much that a nap would almost be magical!

Later on Sunday they confirmed their folks had power and headed to MD for the week.  Its so easy to watch them head out knowing we will see them on Wednesday for a traditional 4th of July Family BBQ!