Happy Birthday America!

Well, happy birthday America!  240 years old looks pretty good on you!  We decided to start the holiday weekend off early by hitting our lil' hometown's carnival.

 Sunshine and a beautiful blue sky. #nofilter

 Bumper cars are always fun!

So is hanging out with one of your best friends!

 Love spending time with my girls ;)

 This guy is pretty exceptional too!

 What carnival experience is complete without cotton candy and a funnel cake?!  I can feel the cavities starting in my teeth even as I write this!

On Saturday it was time to wake up and head to Grandma and Grandpa's!  During the summer, this usually means water of some-sort and usually hanging at the beach!  But first, a ton few games of Apples-to-Apples.  Mei Mei got it for her birthday and we all think it is so much fun to play!

 Sand creations and kayaking for the win!

 After church on Sunday we went down to our dock to cool off.  Brrr, the water seemed much colder than at Grandma and Grandpa's, but that didn't stop anyone.

 Have you tried those bunch 'o water balloons?  So cool...and soo easy!  I can't ever imagine tying another water balloon again.  Water balloon fights are fun, but they can leave a pretty big zing...

 ...so we opted for target practice instead.

 On the actual 4th of July, Lala and Papa came over, as well as our good family friends for a BBQ and fireworks.  All day long it had been overcast but we kept our fingers crossed that the rain would stay away.  Unfortunately, right as we were getting ready to eat, it decided to let loose, so we just stayed home, rather than going down to the park and getting all soggy.

 Quite the multicultural spread here:  ribs (2 styles--traditional and Chinese) and chips, ginger and scallion shrimp, vegetarian stir fry udon noodles, crabcakes with sirachi horseradish sauce, potato salad, tortellini caprice salad and 4th of July salad (spinach with strawberries, blueberries and poppyseed dressing).

Happy bellies and smiling faces!

While the rain came down and the adults chatted, the kiddos entertained themselves.  This crew really gets along well and I love to see them all playing together!

Then it was dessert time!!!  Lemon blueberry trifle, cherry cheesecake, fruit and cupcakes.  I love The Noodle's face in this one!!  Ha--big, wide eyes and a quick lick of the fingers.  A total dessert face ;)

We ended the night down at the park and since the rain had finally stopped, we were able to watch some fireworks.  Due to the mist and heavy cloud coverage it wasn't great, but it was still a fun way to end the evening!  Happy 4th of July!!

4th of July 2015--Part 2

Here's the other half of our 4th of July weekend--warning, just as many photos!

Saturday, the actual 4th, everyone got up and got dressed in their best red, white and blue for our first neighborhood bike parade.  Growing up, there were hardly any families with kids in the 'hood.  When we moved back, the same was still true--boo.  But, just this past Spring, we've had 2 more families move in who have youngsters.  We decided we had to celebrate and a bike parade was the way to go! 

 See?  We doubled (the baby was just visiting)--swelling the ranks I tell ya!

 The ring master himself, leading the crew, with his trusty coffee cup in hand.

 We started off well, but then the 2 oldest realized that it was much more fun to just ride around, and so they kept lapping the preschoolers/toddlers and adult walkers.  Our parade became much more protracted.  Ha!

Stopping by to visit neighborhood dogs and wave to friends.

 Afterwards, we ended up back at the park and enjoyed patriotic popsicles. 

We headed back home for lunch and then naps for all (minus J, who went kayaking) and then went down to the dock for a little swimming.  I decided to watch from the side :)

 Lollie and Papa came over for dinner so we enjoyed sitting outside and chatting with everyone.

 And then, finally, it was time for fireworks!  I had seen on Pinterest the idea to use a Solo cup over the hand when holding sparklers.  J initially scoffed at it, but after about 2 minutes, realized it was a brilliant idea.  Thank you.

Sunday, after church, we headed out to celebrate with Grandma and Grandpa.  Of course we had to play on the beach.

After lunch, Mei Mei opened a few more presents for her birthday

and then snuggled down with Grandpa to enjoy a new book.  I spy someone taking a cat-nap in the background.

It wouldn't be a holiday without homemade ice-cream!  This time we made chocolate raspberry.  Yum.

We are so blessed to live in a country where we have such freedom.  I know I often take mine for granted, so it is good to stop and reflect just how fortunate we are!  Hope you had a fantastic 4th!

4th of July 2015-- part 1

What a fun 4th of July we had this year!  It started off even earlier because J took an extra 1/2 day on Thursday.  Woot-woot!!

Our little town has a small carnival that rolls in every year for a few days over the 4th of July.  The rides are exactly the same as when I was growing up and attending...perhaps even some of the workers are the same too.  Ha!

Since we had just been to Idlewild, riding rides was fresh in everyone's mind.  Since it was Thursday afternoon, there were hardly any crowds which made it even nicer.

The Noodle and I went on the spinney rides and since there weren't any "roller coasters" J was the photographer.  Such a good sport ;)  Mei Mei had fun on the rides which were her size too.

So this ride didn't look too bad.  Lifts you up, spins you around, dips up and down a bit and then back to the ground.  Piece of cake.

 

 Except this is how we felt when we got off of it!  Ha!

 Look at the look on this little turkey's face!  What a doll :)

 The potato sack slide is always a fun one, so J went on that with the Noodle.

 All that excitement, plus an 8 minute ride home, left us with this.  Zonked out, poor baby!

On Friday, we did a few errands in the morning and then hung out at home the rest of the day.

 Eating a picnic lunch in the park is always on the agenda!

 Some exploration with worms, centipedes (!!) and pillbugs.  Ewww, gross!

 A walk down to the pier to look at the Lake.  It was gorgeous!

 After our walk we headed back home to decorate the bikes for the bike parade the next day.  I accidentally picked up permanent double sided tape and we didn't realize until we were almost finished decorating.  I have a sneaking suspicion that our embellishments may be on for quite a while!

Part 2 coming up next!