our 4th

Lots and lots of pics.
No. I mean Lots and Lots.
We had a lot of family time on our hands, lots of time to kill waiting for fireworks and I took a lot of pictures. I tried to whittle it down for posting on here, but really almost every single picture made me smile, so it was hard to decide. We had a fabulous time!!\

We went to our city's Heritage & Freedom Fest, which happens to be the areas biggest, free Fourth of July celebration, with great bands, tons of carnival rides and food, and awesome kids activities. This is the third year we've gone and it was probably the best year ever!
We went on Friday the 3rd so that we could fully participate in our block party on the 4th this year (and because there was rain forecasted for the 4th!). We went down to the festival at around 5 o'clock in the evening and it was perfect... it seemed almost empty compared to the years past we've been there. There were hardly any lines for rides or anything and it was so nice. We met up with Kevin Lucy and Norah who were there for a bit, as well as some neighbors of ours too. We did some rides with Lucy and Norah and then headed into the kids' area where all the inflatable bouncers and slides were as well as crafts, relay games, face painting, puppet shows and balloon animals. (All free!!)

The kids had such fun and like I said, the whole park was relatively empty still at this point, so that made it all the more enjoyable. After a long time of making the rounds in the kids' area, we ventured back into the festival for food. We had brought lots of snacks and fruit and stuff but of course had to splurge on corn dogs and a bloomin onion... we're at the fair!
We took our food out to the field where we spread our blanket for our fireworks watching spot and just enjoyed hanging out in the cooler summer evening. Lots of playing around... (Sawyer silly and impatient with his slowpoke sister getting her sandals on)






































































































Here are the pics of the rides the kids did with Lucy and Norah...


















































And the Ferris Wheel with Mommy...
(Savannah clung tight like this the whole time. I was surprised she even went on it. This is the girl who won't go to the top of most playground climbers; a self-proclaimed scaredy of heights!)(Sawyer loved it of course!)





























Some pitching practice...



















(for which they both won giant inflatable bats)












































































(I took a ton of these pictures bat battling pictures... however some of them I'm going to have to edit rather, um, creatively because if you'll notice, there's a couple in the background... a couple of the female variety, who were all over each other the whole time we were out there. It was rather obnoxious and a little offensive. Forget the fact that it was two women; I would not appreciate any couple making out and groping each other in the middle of a public park while we're trying to enjoy a nice family evening. They ruined half my shots! Gah.)

















































And more hanging out on the blanket.



Fireworks weren't until after 10pm, so we had plenty of time to kill. By about 7:30 the place had packed in so that it wasn't so fun or easy to do the kids' fun stuff anymore, so we ended up back at our blanket just playing around, people watching and visiting the mini family circus with flame throwers, jugglers and stilt guys.













































Savannah killing time on the phone with Gramma...






























I had to put the camera away as it got dark because it was drizzling just a little too much. Not bad for us, but not good for the camera.

The fireworks were awesome. Sawyer said he didn't like them, but Savannah loved them (even with her ears covered the whole time).
I wasn't sure we would last for the show, as that is way late for my kids, but they did great, we all enjoyed it, and best of all... everyone slept in the next morning!

Like I said, on Saturday, the actual 4th of July, we had another great block party. Lots of food, lots of friends, lots of Beer Frisbee games (Patty and I were the ladies' champions!!), lots of rain on and off (thank God for big garages!) and a great night with the neighbors. Once again, too wet to have the camera out, but we had a fabulous evening!