Fourth of July Celebration

We had a pretty low key holiday this year. We took the kids to the parade in the morning. We have a long-standing tradition of hanging out with Heidi and Aaron at the parade, but their boys woke up feeling sick so we were on our own this year. The parade wasn’t quite as much fun as usual for our kids. Our city made a new rule that people couldn’t throw candy or prizes from the floats. Instead, they could walk alongside and hand candy out to the kids. Lots of the parade entries opted for no candy at all and the kids didn’t get nearly the haul that they usually do. They were a little disappointed. Parades are all about the candy when you’re a kid.




Our original plan was to go swimming at Heidi’s parents’ house in the afternoon, but instead we just had a lazy day around the house and got things ready for my family to come for a BBQ. It was a pretty small gathering since several people had to be other places, but we had fun with everyone who came. We had a yummy dinner and ate strawberry shortcake for dessert. Jeremy and Chantelle stopped by for a bit. I was excited to get to meet Olivia. She is a doll! I don’t really want a newborn of my own, but they are sure fun to hold.


The kids had a great time playing with their cousins. They spent most of their time playing in the water and we busted out the candy cannon for a little extra fun. Jody was a cool aunt and did a little target practice with Ben. He loved that.






The fireworks show this year was the shortest I that I can remember. They started at 9:50 (ten minutes early) and were over before 10:00. The good news is that Emily had to get up early the next day, so at least we didn’t have a super late night.

We finished our celebration on Tuesday night with some fireworks at our house. Luckily our kids are still happy with the simple stuff. We bought snaps, flowers, and sparklers and they were completely thrilled. They pretended their sparklers were wands and kept shouting out spells from Harry Potter the whole time we were out there. It was quite entertaining.