4th of July

We began our 4th of July with a bit of sleeping in.  I get headaches with high heat and humidity - so I have not been a fan of the past week.  It seems I have passed this on to Jessica and Anika.  Its hard to sleep when you have a headache!
We took our annual 4th of July picture and drove off to a parade.  The parade lasted about 1 hour but if you took out the emergency vehicles and the antique cars, it would have been less than 10 minutes.  The kids each got a handful of candy and decided we don't need to do that again next year!
We came home and had lunch and got our body temperatures back to a workable temperature.  I left to go get groceries and then we went swimming.  We ate supper and headed off to fireworks.
Every year for fireworks we make puppy chow and caramel puff corn and get icees from the gas station.  Some friends of ours asked if we wanted to do fireworks with them, so off we went to meet them.  We were there by 7:15, scoped out a prime viewing spot and sat down and relaxed.  It was a great time of doing nothing.  It was hot but there was a breeze every so often. The kids played at the park and with another guy who was throwing around a football.  By the time the fireworks were ready to begin two other families from school had joined us so the kids had a great time seeing some classmates they hadn't seen since school got out.  The fireworks were great -we really enjoyed our whole evening.  We went back to the friend's house as they had purchased the home version of fireworks that explode in the air.  Some of those were too loud and too close for my comfort.  The kids got to do sparklers, too.  We were home by midnight, everyone took showers, and they all slept till almost 10 the next day!

this picture is taken at almost the same place as the girls above. The fireworks were shot from a barge on the lake right behind them.