4th of July

I know this is a little late, but now I am caught up on all my blog posts!

We had a good 4th of July this year- it definitely was not the same as our usual tradition of going up to the cabin with my family, but still fun. This is what we did that day:

First we mowed our lawn! That was a first for us. We have never had grass our whole married life- so this was kinda fun. ( I can say that because I didn't do it! I was inside making food the whole time!)

After that we loaded up the kids and went to WalMart. Ryan has noticed lately how Clark is not very good a sports, and why? Because we don't play them enough at home. Ryan is not a big sports guy, and I'm just a swimmer, so poor Clark has no one to teach him! Ryan decided enough is enough and took us to WalMart to get a basketball hoop. I'm glad he did- I don't want Clark to be the one boy who doesn't know how to play sports, and it gives them something to play downstairs! He picked it up quick, and is getting pretty good. Kate on the other hand, doesn't get the concept of throwing the ball. She just wants to dunk it. So she has resorted to getting a chair and just dropping it in!

That night we went across the street to Todd and Dee Dee's house for a BBQ. They had some other people from our neighborhood over, which was good, so we could get to know some of our neighbors. The weather was beautiful and we just sat in their front yard, ate, talked and watched the kids play in the street! Once it got dark (about 9pm - stupid day light savings, the sun isn't down until 9:30pm!), we started fireworks! This was the best part of our day! It was so fun to have the kids to pops and sparklers and all those things I remember doing as a kid on the 4th. We spent way too much money on fireworks, but I thought it was worth it. Ryan was a bit disappointed- none of them shoot up. I guess the law here is that you can't have anything over 15 feet. Lame. So Ryan and a friend from work are going to make a trip to Wyoming where you can get the good stuff.

At 10pm, after our little show we drove a few miles where we could see the fireworks show at Thanksgiving Point. We watched for about 30 minutes and then decided to bail. Come to find out we had just missed the finale! Oh well!

Kate and Clark with their new best friend Spencer


Kate, Clark and Spencer throwning the pops into the street

For those of you unfamiliar with fireworks- these are little tanks. You light the back and it sparks and is supposed to make the tank move (ours didn't). Then it has little fireworks come out of the front from it's guns. It's pretty cool. I guess Ryan loved these as a kid- so we had to get some for Kate and Clark.

Ryan lighting the tanks

Sparklers!!