Photos from the 4th

Some pictures from our 4th of July celebration:

Nate and Ben went to the parade an hour and a half early to save our spot. It was pretty cold in the shade so Ben spent most of the waiting time across the street soaking up some rays and reading Harry Potter.


Aaron had to work, but Heidi and the boys kept with tradition and joined us for the parade. It was fun to hang out with them. Ben is blurry in the first picture because he was dancing (which is why Heidi and I are cracking up). He could give Elaine Benes a run for her money.




After the parade, we headed back to our house for a picnic under the trampoline and a little cousin play time.


Nate was nice and hooked up the hose to the hot water heater so the kids could have a warm pool to play in. Notice Ben’s cool new bands on his braces. He was so excited to get red, white, and blue at his last orthodontist appointment.





Ben and Abby had a little water fight. Abby couldn’t really hold the gun and squeeze the trigger with one hand. Instead she used this (amazingly awkward) technique.


We played a little bocce ball while we were waiting for it to get dark. Nate wore a tie most of the day . . . just in case someone had planned a holiday ambush in the water fight.


We had planned on walking up the canal road to watch the fireworks, but all of the kids wanted to just stay here and watch from the trampoline. It worked out great. We did a few fireworks before the show started and then let the kids do sparklers before we headed into bed. I did the girls’ hair in a fun glow stick-holding hairdo. You can’t really tell from the pictures, but they looked pretty cool running around with the glow sticks woven through their hair.