4th of July Weekend

We really didn't know what we were going to do for the weekend of the 4th. Jeff has responsibilities on Sundays that he doesn't like to miss and so with the 4th of July on a Saturday, our usual festivities almost went down the drain. We have a nice little set up... for the 4th of July we visit Jeff's family and for Halloween we visit my family. Having these holidays with the Grandparents usually free's up Christmas to ourselves...which is a must according to Jeff. And, of course, this isn't the only time we visit the Grandparents throughout the year! Anyway, so with the 4th on Saturday and staying up late to watch fireworks we initially cancelled our trip to visit Jeff's family. But, as the 4th got closer we ultimately decided to just go and come back really, really early on Sunday morning so that Jeff could attend to his duties.

It was a great decision! We arrived by noon on Friday and the festivities were non-stop. We split into two teams, boys vs. girls and went on a scavenger hunt to find the weirdest most interesting things in 3 different parts of town. The girls ended up winning with a 1/4 pound piece of beef jerky...it was HUGE!! Who would really buy that big of a piece of beef jerky. The boys got second and third place with a little yellow smiley face doll and something else I can't remember. I really thought that our random ceramic ostrich or hunter in a jar would have won, but I guess the judge thought differently. Then we ended the night by buying fireworks and playing games.

The morning of the 4th started with a rush! Jeff woke up with Sullivan so that I could sleep in and by the time I woke up we had about an hour and a half to make a quick run to Walmart (forgot to pack a few things) bathe and get 3 kiddos ready and shower and get ready myself. We made it to the parade with time to spare. The parade was quite disappointing though. They didn't throw candy this year, so people just walked up to the kids and put a piece of candy in their bags. It just isn't as fun as running out in the road and collecting as many pieces of candy as you can. I was all for the lack of sugar though!!

Poor London had a terrible view of the parade.





Then we walked through a farmers market where Jeff was suckered into buying some Jam. I whispered in his ear that I could make him some for a fraction of what he'd pay here, but he put me in my place when he whispered back that we need to support these small businesses. On the way home from the parade and farmers market, we stopped to get the kids some ice cream.



Grandma and Ashley baked some cupcakes for all the kids to decorate in red/white and blue frosting. These kinds of activities are always a success with my kids because they like to lick their fingers as they go along. Kamryn has an addiction to sugar (what kid doesn't) and her cupcakes ended up rather low on the frosting! Not to mention, she ate a few cupcakes through out the day, and her parade candy...can you imagine what she was like that night!! I don't believe that sugar makes kids hyper, but with Kamryn sugar seems to make her talk. She seriously chatted ALL night long, she wouldn't stop to breathe or get an answer to a question or listen to our comments after her stories. At first it was cute and fun, but by the time we went to watch the late night fireworks I was telling her to calm down, take a deep breath.





What 4th of July is complete without a BBQ for dinner. It was quite yummy! After dinner, we decided to get a start on our fireworks. We always buy quite a few and it takes awhile to go through them. We had barely let off a few when we were hit by a freaky summer storm that had huge balls of hail coming from the dark clouds above. We all ran inside waiting for it to pass. Jeff and Jamie ran outside in the hail for a bit...crazy boys! Then it started flooding the basement, so all that was able ran downstairs with buckets and started removing the water from the window wells. It was quite the fun storm, of course I didn't have to help with the bailing of all the water so I'm not sure that the others would have labelled it as "fun".
A double rainbow after the storm.

The storm left this cool lake in the front yard that the girls had a fun time playing in.


Look at the size of that hail!

Bailing out the window wells.

The storm passed and we were able to light all the fireworks and still make it to the big show that night.

Looks like someone has had a long day...