Happy 4th of July!

It has been a wonderful week. My kids say that they HATE the 4th of July in Seattle.  But it has been pretty fun.  My parents got into town on the 3rd, and we have eaten delicious food, watched fun movies, and just enjoyed each other's' company.  Delightful.

We started the 4th with Red & Blue pancakes.  (Not me, of course, but everyone else.)  We also had lots of bacon and eggs.  (I had been doing touch up paint in the sunroom for several hours, so it wasn't really the start of my day, but I digress.  The Sunroom is ALMOST done...I can't wait to show some pictures of that!)

Then we dropped of the parade spectators in Edmonds.  

The parade walkers then went to the staging area.  It was chilly--but not too cold.  And it did warm up enough by the end of the parade that I was ready to take off my sweatshirt.  (Of course I was carrying the speaker so I couldn't pause to take if off.)  Sarah carried a banner the whole time.  Ben raced from wagon to sidlines to give out candy and then flyers.  He probably doubled my step count from running back and forth.  He ran out of gas by the end.  But it was adorable.  Libby also had a blast running from side to side, cheering, passing out candy & flyers and yelling--Go Rhinos!  I think they might not admit it, but they had fun. They were sad that they didn't get any candy, but I think we made up for it with ice cream later in the weekend. 

Staging fun. Ben as the Rhino. 

Then we came home for a hot dog and bratwurst roast.  We sat around the fire and chatted for hours with both sets of grandparents.  Even Derek got to be there for dinner before he headed off for another shift.  Ben did all the poppers and confetti bombs and champagne poppers that Clark gave him for his birthday (allowing us all to try some too).  We played the "slips of paper" game with 3 of 4 grandparents (Geneva was putting her leg up inside).  We also played a round of croquet after the Nortons grandparents went home.  Grandpa Kelly schooled all of us.  Ben and I took last.  There was some wailing and gnashing of teeth around that.  He was pretty unhappy.  It can be hard to be the youngest. Then we watched Willow.  I have been wanting to share that movie with them for years.  It was so fun to watch together with my parents.  We didn't watch fireworks.  But it was a great 4th nonetheless.   

So thankful for our country and our freedoms!