The Fiery Fourth

The 4th of July was one packed day. We hurried to all get ready and do a flag ceremony before we went to the town's parade, and the boys did a good job despite not remembering quite how to do one. We made it just in time to the parade, and the kids got a LOT of candy and bible camp flyers. RD did a great job cheering and clapping, which ensured we got visited by the people handing out candy, and Aubree and Cameron kept up with him. It was a fun parade, with veterans, a hot-air-balloon basket, militia, bubbles, horses, trains, and even chocolate :)

The rest of the day we played on the beach and deck. The kids really like the slide and diving board. They asked for a ride out to it on the paddleboat, so RD and I took them out as Aubree napped. The diving board was a bit high for the girl's liking, and Reese had second thoughts about diving off the board.

 RD, Grace, Cameron, my Dad, Ava, Juliana, and Jake rotated through some water ball games, while Brian and Jake went kayaking, and Dave and I watched Bree and Marcus playing on the beach with the water.and listened to Aubree ask over and over and over for more candy. she even ate some of Jake's candy he put under his bed, during her naptime, oops.

and RD snuck in some more fishing.

After dinner the kids resorted to running back and forth across the deck, and playing with two balloons Aubree and Marcus got at the parade.

Reese enjoyed playing with James, who ended up hitting the balloon off the deck, where it popped on the ground. Aubree saw all this, and her face fell into an 'aw uuh!" which was pretty funny.

uuhh!

Grace caught another frog, excited it could be Froggy from last year. All the kids wanted to see.

We played on the beach and had a fire and s'mores, waiting for it to get dark enough to light fireworks.  You can see Aubree having headphones on to try to mute the sounds but it was still too much for her and RD took her up to hang out inside the lakehouse.

As it was turning dark, we started with some parachutes, after which Ava and Cameron went out in the paddleboat to clean up before they drifted across the lake.

 Most of the little kids were in bed, or were scared of the loud noises from the fireworks, so we didn't have everyone around for the fire show, but it was a lot of fun. My parents put a great show on. Ever the competitor, Reese had Cameron and Jake keeping a running score of everyone's fireworks around the lake, and we came out the clear winner.