4th of July

We had a wonderful 4th of July weekend again this year. The weather was warm and sunny making it easy to get outside and do things. We started off with redoing some landscaping on Thursday and on Friday Wellyn cleaned out the garage - a much needed task; while I stained some benches and a bird house for the yard - getting the "work" out of the way first! . At dusk we packed the kids in the bike trailer and headed to the fireworks. It's nice we live close to about everything and the fireworks are no exception. They are only a mile or so from our house, and after sitting in traffic for over 40min leaving the display last year, we opted for a different mode of transportation. We had so much fun! Each boy brought a football and we played catch, had muffins, chips and pretzels until it was time for the big show. Aiden was a little scared at first, but as long as I was hugging him he was fine. It's probably the latest our kids have ever stayed up... by the end, they were more than ready to head home and get in bed!

A couple videos with the kids and the water hose:




Here's Wellyn and Aiden enjoying a slow start to the morning.


Saturday we did errands in the morning and had our own fireworks show in the evening. Our neighbors joined us with their little boy, Joseph, who turned one a few weeks ago. It was incredibly windy so we anchored our fireworks in a bucket of sand to keep them from blowing away. We ended it up calling it a night after about half had been lit as the wind was just too strong. The boys were a little disappointed - until they found out I'd made some 4th of July cupcakes! Nothing like a little sugar before bed ;)

Yeah, the cupcakes seemed easy to do... after three of the "fancy" ones, I gave up and just put sprinkles on the rest!



Some of our fireworks:



Sunday we woke up, packed up and headed for the beach! There is a great park and beach area near Wellyn's work and the kids swam, waded, played in the sand and playground. Brendan practiced swimming with his lifejacket and Aiden had fun wading around. We didn't get a lot of pictures since we were in the water so much.

This past week, Brendan started zoo camp at Como Zoo. It's about 25 minutes from here and has a lot of youth programs in the summer. He was really excited about it - until we got there... then it was tears and asking me to take him home. I stayed for the first 40 minutes and then when it was time to go visit the giraffe and zebra I made my exit. He usually does great after he gets comfortable, and this was no exception. Each day they went for 2 hours and learned about Africa and the people and animals there. They played games, made crafts and visited the animals.