Fourth of July

Hurray, I'm less than two months behind on blogging! The fourth of July is one of our favorite holidays, and this year was better than ever. We began our day with a visit to the carnival our homeowners' association puts on every year. G loved the bounce houses, but S was holding out for the good stuff. Both of these "food" items make me ill. So full of food coloring, corn syrup and other yucky stuff. So of course the rest of my family loves this stuff. I try to not watch while they eat it.

After filling up on the fake stuff, we headed home to rest up before going to the beach. We had one of the best potluck dinners I've ever had and a great time playing in the sand. We tried the inflatable kayaks, which were great, except for when J, S and G all tried to be in one, and all fell out. I think our friend took some photos of us kayaking? After our fun and yummy dinner, we headed home for fireworks.

This was the first year that J has carried on his family's tradition. S was thrilled to have some of our own to light off.

We set up camp with some neighbors, and the dads took turns lighting off the goods.
These are some of the remnants. None of our families went all out, but between the three of us, we had enough to delight the kids who were still awake. G slept through all of this. We took turns going back to check on her. Maybe next year she'll stay awake!

One of the sights of the night. None of our photos of the big rockets came out this year, but the neighborhood display was as good as usual - the 360 degree show for a good 45 minutes +.

One of the neighbors had four long sparklers for the kids to end out the show. They had a great time waving them and writing their names.