July 4th

We had a really fun 4th of July. We started on the Saturday before having our annual neighborhood bike parade and barbecue. All the kiddos got to decorate their bikes. Emmett, their cousin, has just moved here so they are thrilled to have him join us for all the activities! The parade was quite hot so it was a little bit of a disaster. We were soooo hot we almost felt sick in fact. Then Karis fell and scraped both knees, Alex crashed twice (but he rides without training wheels like a maniac so would keep on going), and one of the other girls crashed I think. It's all a blur of sweat, blood, tears, and "where's Alex now???!!!". In fact Hannah told me that Alex kept yelling to Emmett, "I'm faster than you!" to which Emmett would yell, "But I'm bigger than you!" Aww...finally some boy competition for Alex!

On the actual 4th we had a barbecue. We had several friends meet us at the pool, then we went home and barbecued and then most left to put their kids to bed. What??!! Hannah and Brent and our friends Dan and Becky and "Baby Avery" (who the kiddos just adore) ended up staying until dark. Which here is like 10:00 because we are right on the edge of the time zone.  Brent pretty much summed up the fireworks viewing when he yelled, "THIS! IS! AWESOME!" It was amazing. Tons of neighbors all had fireworks, as well as us, so they were constantly being lit all up and down the street. Also we could see them above us. The kiddos were at first a little nervous...look at the progression above, but then got really into it and had soooo much fun!! What a great neighborhood we live in!