July 4th is my absolute favorite holiday and my favorite day of the year. I love
EVERY SINGLE THING about it!
We began the day with our traditional neighborhood pancake breakfast and flag raising ceremony. It's always a fun event! We LOVE our neighbors and our 'hood!
The kids made new tie-dye shirts this year. I REALLY like it when they get into wearing red, white, and blue!
I didn't have any face paint and the girls wanted "tattoos" so we just used our Sharpie markers instead. Inventive, huh? I love love love Miss Abbey's freckles!
After breakfast, we headed down to the Monument 4th of July parade. It's the best little slice of Americana that I know of and one of my favorite traditions!!! There are floats and horses and marching bands and politicians and sports teams and cheerleaders! Oh, and elephants! Lots of local businesses and churches have floats and they always throw candy (and other fun treats) to the kids. It's such a great parade with lots of local flavor.
Emily and her family joined us and sadly I don't have one picture of her cute little family!
It was REALLY hot at the parade this year. We came home afterwards and grilled brats for lunch and then just chilled! We made some
homemade ice cream and grilled chicken kebabs for dinner. YUMMY!
Our community has a really great fireworks show but it is sooooooo crowded. We usually stay home and watch them from our cul de sac with our neighbors. The great thing is that we can actually see TWO fireworks shows from our street and when it's over we can just walk inside and hit the hay instead of sitting in a gridlocked traffic for an hour! Our kids love hanging with all their neighborhood friends and SO DO WE! It's always a lot of fun and a great way to end a great day!
It is SO dry here so we weren't allowed to shoot any of our own fireworks or even light sparklers...and we had to keep explaining to all the kids who are so used to doing that every year why we couldn't this time...I'm not sure they ever totally understood why none of their parents wanted a $600 ticket!
I always feel so blessed at the end of this day--blessed to live in the USA and have all sorts of freedoms and blessed to have
amazing friends and family to celebrate with! I hope your 4th of July was fantastic!
7 comments:
What a FUN weekend!!!! :)
Good times!
Did you have any trouble getting the Sharpie off?
So fun! Great pictures!
I've been thinking about you this week, since this time last year we were in Colorado. I'm ready for another visit!
That sounds like a wonderful fourth of July. It reminded me of so many we had just like that when our kids were little. Lots of friends and neighbors and good old American fun!
I just said this on another blog, but I have 4th of July envy.
Love the shirts!
I swear one of these years I'm going to come down there and sit next to you during that parade!!! I can't think of the 4th of July without thinking of you. :)
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