Independence Day 2008

The 4th of July is one of my favorite holidays. The summer heat, parades, good food, family,water fun, fireworks - what's not to like about it. This year was a particularly good one. We went to the parade in the morning. My mother and father-in-law were in the parade this year, so it was fun to see them pass by. My brother was also home for the fourth, and at the parade was when I got to see him for the first time. He is selling Comcast in Seattle, but he got to come home for the weekend. After the parade we headed over to our good friends the Smith's for their annual 4th of July Barbecue. The food was excellent, as it always is.

Later we went back home to get ready for our own party we were hosting at our house. It was with Sean's side of the family, and it was a swimming party. We had two pools set up. One was warm because it had been soaking up the sun for a few days, and the other one was pretty chilly because we had just filled it up. The kids liked the warm one the best and swam for hours.
We also set up some slip-n-slides and they turned out to be the hit of the party. I am pretty sure that us big kids had more fun on them than the actual kids. We flipped, twisted, flopped, skied, and splashed our way down - sometimes getting pretty grassy and muddy at the end.
We also barbecued up some hamburgers and hot dogs for everybody before we all headed over to the fireworks. Below is three of the hottest mama's you will ever find soaking up some sun.

The fireworks we spectacular like usual. They say it is the biggest firework display west of the Mississippi, but that could just be a rumor. We visited the Marshall side of the family at their usual spot and then headed over to where my family sits - which is so close to where they light the fireworks off that you actually get bits of firework debree that sometimes falls on you. June wasn't too sure about the big BOOM that the fireworks make, but after the first few she decided that they were very pretty and she liked to watch them.
After the big fireworks we went over the Sean's parents house and lite off more fireworks. I love a good sparkler, so I danced around the yard with a few of those. The kids loved picking fireworks and watching them go off. June was asleep by this time, so I didn't have to worry about her burning herself. We ended up staying and chatting with some of my brother and sister-in-laws until about 2:00 a.m. It was worth it because we got to laughing pretty hard, and I love when that happens. Altogether it was a great holiday.