4th of July

For fourth of July this year we did our usual local event. A parade and BBQ at my grandma's house followed by the firework show at our old high school, just a block away from my Grandma's house. Max's parent's joined us as well as some friends from church, the Mallards. It was a very hot day, we've been having abnormally hot weather here in Oregon, I don't mind, I just have to remember to put sunblock on my kids, and try to remember to cover Miles' bald head.

The celebrations had barely started and Miles already looked like this. His shirt was soaked with watermelon.

We arrived and ate our food then went out to the sidewalk to watch the little parade. 

The group

Then we had a couple hours to kill before fire work time so my cousin had the brilliant idea of bringing the slip 'n slide! The kids loved it!

Miles cracked me up, He wanted to crawl down but then loved the splash at the end and would stand up and do a victory run to me,

Our Friend Jessica Mallard made a gorgeous 5 layer cake and brought candles so we could sing happy birthday to America and all the kids could blow out the candles.  Max gave them a little lesson about the US flag.

 Around 8 pm they started a couple fireworks at my Grandma's house but we decided to go find our seats for the fireworks show at the high school.

Just as we arrived the Life Flight helicopter was landing. We found a spot in the field to set up our chair and blankets, Max's parents sat down while Max took the boys to check out the helicopter. I realized I had forgotten my camera so I ran back to my grandma's house to get it.

I got back just in time to capture these photos. Max was standing in line waiting to see the helicopter but the boys kept running away into the baseball field. I decided to play with them in the field while Max saved their place in line. These photos were 95% luck and I'm so pleased with them.

 These will be fun ones to pull out when they start little league someday!

They finally got their turn to check out the helicopter for about 3 seconds, so I just managed to get this blurry photos then it was time to get off.

After the brief helicopter visit, we walked back to the field. They had started playing some dance music over the speakers so we enjoyed that. Miles is quite the dancer. Miles also impressed us with his soccer skills as he dribbled the ball all around the field.

 As we continued to wait for the fireworks, Charlie got to run around with his friend's Kerrington and Kai.

I set up my tripod with remote control so I could take photos of the fireworks while still cuddling with my family. Each of the boys had moments of cuddliness but mostly they were wiggly. Both boys loved the fireworks though.

We walked back to my grandma's house and it ended up being almost midnight before we left to go home. Max's parents stayed the night at our house. 

And a bonus funny story, the next day was Sunday and Charlie was still wearing his eye patch when we left for church. He has to wear it for 2 hours everyday to strengthen his weak eye.  He had multiple people ask him if he had a firework accident.