Hope you had a wonderful July 4th! We've had a fun week and today was espically fun even though the day started out much wetter then we expected. We were joined by my parents and a friend from church. She was a last minute addition, we found out this morning her husband had to work and the people she was going to visit forgot she was coming and made plans to go out of town–I told her OF COURSE she should come (how horried would it be to do the 4th on your own with your two kids?), insisted she wouldn't be hogging in on family time and she came over. Her oldest son is Will's age and they had great fun running around together. Alex tried to tag after the bigger boys, but soon had to go take a nap.

Our grilling was done under the overhang from our roof and we all crowded around the tables inside (I had planned on using the extra table on the deck, but our last rain shower occured just as the food was ready so we stayed inside). After lunch it cleared up and the bigger boys were kicked outside while the younger boys napped and the grown-ups talked.  My friend left later to see the local festival our town has, while Alex was still asleep (he and Will were up at 6 this morning!). This gave Will some time to rest (we had hoped he would nap, but that didn't happen).  Once the kids were rested up, we went to visit the festival.  

We enjoyed festival food, music and the kids got to play some games. Will had fun shooting water balloons.

Alex discovered the putt-putt golf and both boys had a great time playing that. Alex had an interesting technique, at times it looked like he was playing pool more than golf! But he got a hole in one on the last hole!

We walked back to the house and then had a bonfire. I had bought Peeps after Easter and froze them for when James' parents came. We roasted those (YUM!) and had smores.

(James had a good time, even though he looks grumpy there.)

 

We opted to skip the fireworks this year. The boys were thrilled with the bonfire. Earlier in the week they had found a beetle (Will was calling it a click beetle) and I told them it was a fire fly. So tonight I told them they could stay up and watch for them. The kids had never seen them since they don't come out until around 9:30 here. The boys are usually in bed and asleep by then. It was a Very Special Treat. It was so much fun to watch them chase the fire flies around and to show them how to catch them. I am going to try to remember all that the next three days when one of them dissolves in a fit of tears because they're overtired, as we slowly catch up on sleep.

Once the kids were in bed, the grown-ups stayed up WAY too late watching TV and I finally updated our blog–sorry posting so many things at one time! We hope you all have a great holiday weekend.