4th of July

For the Forth of July, we packed our Wednesday full!  It was actually very refreshing to have one day off of work mid-week.  Most everyone at my work took the days before or after the holiday off, so I had extra time to catch up from all the busyness.  It finally started to slow down at this point.

We followed our tradition for this day, mostly, as below...
1) Murray Parade - this was great!  It was extra hot this year, but we enjoyed Jeff announcing and hanging with the Evans and kiddos.  I was able to hold Izzy for awhile :).  And we invited our favorite Clark crew, Jon & Annie + kiddos.  So I got lots of Sophie and Sam time too!  It was fun watching the kids watch the parade.  But really I forget each year how the parade is mostly about the free candy that comes flying into the crowds.  And if you're lucky, you just might get nailed.  (Poor Sophie did and I tried to save her even!) My favorite are the jeeps that drive on top of each other.  My least favorite was some random entry, a spook house, where all the half-dead bloody crew came walking (very slowly and spread out) down the  parade.  And they were in costumes such as the statue of liberty, with blood, or some of our founding fathers, with blood, gore, etc.  Random!  And really odd with all the kiddos wanting candy and then they see (or get distracted so they don't see) this!  Anyway, here's the crew below:

2) Next up, we ran home and had 2 hours to chill before a few BBQ's (Evans & Clark)  While David chilled, I really wanted to get this Fourth of July craft done!  I started like Monday, and had 1/4 left and finished it in the two hours.  And proudly hung it outside right then and kept it up all of July.  I'm pretty proud, and think it looks awesome for my first yarn wreath!  The hardest parts are not being o.c.d. about the lines and also just wrapping the yarn around and around with the yarn ball going each time too.  Didn't think that one through totally.

3 & 4) BBQ with Evans and BBQ with the Clarks - one right after another!  David was volunteered to cook the beef so, as he was wearing khaki pants, they got totally covered in meat grease!  (Luckily I used dish soap, then baking powder, and more dish soap after dried, and its not visible, yay!)  We ate what we could and then headed to my in-laws to repeat the BBQ.  David kept eating, while I just snacked a little.  We brought our suits and swam with the kids in the "pop-up pool" as I call it.  (Its the 5 foot on top of the ground framed pool).  It was interesting, but after awhile I didn't think about it being dirty and just had fun playing with the kids.  There were too many of us in there but we got a good whirlpool going so that was fun.  Didn't get pictures of these...
5) Lastly we came home, watched a movie, and instead of watching the Murray fireworks as usual, we just stayed home, did a few sparklers, and watched the fireworks from the street.  We were so exhausted from swimming and the sun all day, we just needed a rest....  Below is my cute Davie.  The first was an attempt at a smile, but our camera is a little slow.  The next I really love, showing his silly side as always :)

Happy Fourth of July everyone!!!  (even if I'm a month late... ;))