Happy 4th of July!

We really had a great time this Independence Day. I LOVE this holiday, everything about it. Parades, fireworks, American History, Freedom; it's ALL good!

We started the day out with the Upper Arlington parade, a 4 year tradition. Usually the parade has really cool floats and is a lot of fun. This year it seemed to consist mostly of trailers carrying various people that I didn't know nor really care about. And, of course, there was no candy. How can you have a parade without candy!? We may be changing venues next year...

We all had our 4th of July shirts on (Jacob won't wear a flag shirt but he would wear his solid red one) and I found these jingle bells at JoAnn's for 1$. The kids loved them and jingled any time a float went by.

We went to Indiana after the parade to spend the rest of the holiday with my sister and her family. The kids had such a good time playing together and the only drawback was that it rained all day. But the kids weren't deterred; I think they all ended up in their swimsuits outside in the rain! We went so some of their friends for dinner and got out some fireworks (which ARE allowed in Indiana. What's up with Ohio?). Jacob loved everything fireworks this year. He was so excited for them! Here he is trying out sparklers.

Then while the guys shot bottle rockets into the pond outback we made a mess of the driveway with those little white snappers. All the kids liked those. Rachel was nervous around the real fireworks but loved the snappers.

Then we busted out some fountains and other fun stuff. Jacob LOVED it all! Look at that face! Rachel spent the whole time in Peter's arms. "Peder will keep me safe". Emma just didn't like the loud noises at all but the colors were interesting. At dusk we went to the Muncie fireworks which Kristy hyped up pretty big. And she was right! They were awesome and definitely worth the rainy drizzle. Rachel was so tired she fell asleep sitting straight up on my lap! We sure enjoyed ourselves. Thanks Kris, for letting us visit!