4th of July

The kids and I went to my parents house for 6 days over the 4th of July holiday. The pictures on my very first post on the blog are from that trip, but I wanted to add some more pictures & details.

The biggest event for my kids was going to the parade and carnival on Saturday.

This is my Granddaddy with a few of his grand and great-grandchildren before the parade started. He is in the nursing home now, but we went over and got him the morning of the 4th so he could watch the parade.

Then, the parade started.....police cars, firetrucks, the governor and every other state & local politician you can imagine, beauty queens, cheerleaders, ball teams, the band, tractors, motorcycles, antique cars, decorated golf carts, horses and at the very end, behind the horses was the local vet serving the citizens as the official pooper-scooper! Gotta love the wholesomeness of a small town parade.

Oh, but I did forget to mention the candy? All those vehicles listed above threw out candy. That was most definitely Eli and Emma Kate's favorite part.

Here's Eli....

and Emma Kate...

I was curious to see how Zane and Zander would react to all the commotion, especially the sirens of the police cars and firetrucks. I have to say, both of their reactions were very true to their personality.

Zane was very serious, inspecting it all with brows furrowed...

And Zander was loving it!...

The night before the parade, I decorated the boys little red wagon, thinking how cute and patriotic they would look riding around in it. They normally LOVE riding in this wagon. But, you can probably guess that they didn't get in it at all. This shot was totally posed just so I could take a picture of the wagon. You can even see that I had to bribe them by giving them a snack!

Eli and Emma Kate got to go the carnival 3 times throughout the day. They enjoyed riding the rides and playing a few of the games like "throw-the-dart-at-the-balloon." (I'm sure you remember those games where you win the tackiest of prizes!) The swings was by far their most favorite ride each time they went though.

I think Emma Kate looks like she's going to be sick in this next picture, but she assured me that she was feeling fine...

So those are from the actual day during the 4th of July. I have a few more from the rest of our trip that I'll share in my next post.