Happy Fourth!

I'm missing my buttons again, so I'll edit in what pictures I have, later.

When the kids start sleeping 'til 9am, it's amazing how early 7:30 is. We caught pancakes with the ward, anyway, but the weather meant we had to leave the tricycle in the car--no bikes for the indoor "parade." After that we caught up with my brothers Rick and Mike and their families for a real parade. Elena liked the horses, which is good because we managed to catch that last 10 minutes of the parade 3 or 4 straight times. The rain even held off until the end, only falling in earnest once the floats had all finished the route. Back indoors, we had lunch, watched movies and played games, went shopping, and just talked. It dried out enough in the early evening to ride bikes and scooters--Joseph's pretty good at pushing his truck, Gramma--and even head next door to the neighborhood pool, though we had to stick to the wading pool since the big pool was an odd lime green color. Elena and Joseph both enjoyed splashing around in the water. We skipped the baseball game, but went with everyone to Mike's other house (they'd moved and the one on the market is outside the city limits) to set off fireworks. Joseph was so excited to see all the lights and hears the whistles and booms and pops. Elena got to do sparklers, this year. As we left, we saw the tail end of the professional display at the pizza and go-carts place a few blocks over.