Family, Friends, Food and Explosives

If you don't already know this about me, I LOVE the 4th of July! Like, almost as much as Christmas, kinda love. In fact if you replace the presents with sunshine, it's pretty much the same thing. I also really like tradition. Like might not be the right word. I'm obsessed with tradition, and 4th of July is packed with tradition. The things we do, the food we eat and the places we go.

So here's what our 4th of July weekend looked like. Friday night we BBQ'd at my parents house and as always it was delish! Then we took a walk on our favorite path by my parents house which takes you down by the creek and had some fun playing on, in and around the creek. One of my favorite memories from when I was a kid was taking after dinner strolls as a family on a warm summer night. I love recreating those same memories, only adding in some spouses and another generation.

We ended the evening with a game of Charades around the fire pit. As if we weren't convinced before, our children really are the most hilarious people ever! During this particular game, Ty stole the show!

We spent Sunday afternoon/evening/night getting ready for the all day party that was about to take place. We decorated the bikes for the parade, the back yard and even the deserts got decorated. It's just how we roll ;)

Then for Christmas, I mean the 4th! We started our day with our traditional Happy Valley Parade. It's always tiring, hot, and a lot of work but we do it every year because it's our tradition...and we loooove tradition! (and it is fun and super cute:)

We spent the afternoon visiting old and new friends and soaking up the sun. While the fish I gave birth to, along with the rest of the kids, spent 7 hours in the hot tub turned swimming pool.

After dinner we walked the 1.5 mile back to Happy Valley park for the fireworks. Also a tradition. We decided to sit in the school's back yard this year instead of the park because they changed where they shoot them off and we want to be as close to being underneath them as possible. Well off in the corner the sprinklers are on. No bid deal, we are pretty far from them. They turn off and the next row starts...they keep moving closer and closer. Well I figured we were out of the line of fire...my Daddy knew better. He kept warning everyone to be ready to run. No one listened. Ooops. Literally as the first firework shot in the air so did the sprinklers directly underneath us. Awesome!! Here goes a gang of people ( including the 30 something that were in our group) grabing kids, shoes, phones, blankets running and screaming. Hilarious! We ended up sitting on the curb watching them. If it wasn't so funny, it wouldn't have really sucked!

After we all got back to my parents and everyone rummaged through leftover food we headed outside to light off our own fireworks. Yes we are those people that light them off outside your window at 11:30...sorry ;) We did cut it off at midnight, so we'll just have to finish up the rest up tomorrow night :)

Now all you need is a relaxing, hot day by the pool in there and you've got yourself a perfect weekend!! Oh wait!! We did that too! Hope you had a happy 4th of July everyone!!

P.S. It would be great to have pics on here, but I just don't know how ;)