4th of July

   This year the 4th of July fell on a Wednesday.  Having a holiday in the middle of the week made things a little tricky.  Thankfully, I had a week break from school.  We drove up to the cabin first thing on Tuesday morning.  The kids had a great time playing in the river and other various adventures.

Mud hands

Playing in the mud

Leaving some mud prints

My Dad set up his hammock.  Ashlyn loved reading in it.

Swinging baby

Sisters!

 Joey took Gracie on a ride and it really wore her out

 On the morning of the 4th, we woke up bright and early and headed down to Buena Vista.  My brother and I were running in the annual Independence 5k.  It's a race we both really enjoyed and I was very excited to run it again since I didn't get to last year.  It was the first race I have done in a very long time!  While Steven and I were registering for the race, Joey took the kids to the pancake breakfast.  It is in a nice park and it's always a good breakfast.

Pancake time!

Gracie eating her pancakes

Joey always takes a picture on the railroad tracks

My brother, coming in the finish line.  He got first place!!! I was so proud of him.  He has done this race several times, and has always come in the top three.  This year he is in great shape and finally pulled of the win!  This particular race is a pretty tough course as it is pretty hilly.   Way to go!!!

My crossing the finish line.  My brother is also in the picture because he helped run me in.  

 After the race, we started lining up for the parade.  The parade is the cutest little small town parade.  I think the entire town comes out for it, so it is always nice that we are there early for a good spot.  The kids were ready to get some candy!

Ready to get some candy!

Patriotic girl

Emmy slept through most of the parade.  It won't be long before she is out there grabbing candy too!

So much candy!!!

  After the parade, we made the long drive home.  We got home, took quick showers, and headed over to my parents house to continue the celebrations.  My mom made a wonderful dinner and had an awesome burger bar.  We stuffed ourselves silly!!!
    The kids ran around and played with water balloons and the little popper fireworks.  We had planned to stay and watch the fireworks at the baseball stadium from my parent's backyard.  We were waiting for the game to end, when it started raining around 9:00 P.M.  The game was delayed and we knew it would be some time before the fireworks went off.  We were all just way too tired to wait around, so we made the decision to go home.  We were all bummed to miss fireworks, but it felt good to finally crawl into bed!  We did get to come back over to my parent's house Friday night and got to see fireworks then.

Our annual 4th of July picture.  A certain someone didn't want to cooperate at first.  

Finally got a decent one

Blowing out the candles on the special cake my mom got

Emmy's first 4th of July.  She loved it!