Fourth of July Weekend

We always love our Riverton Town Days parade, but to get to have Jesse and Amy's family down from Spokane to join us was such a treat.  What can make a parade with an endless supply of popscicles even more fun?  Just add cousins!

My wonderful sister lives in the same city, so we were so happy to have her and her kiddos join the fun as well.

 I'm so glad Abe has such a good friend in his brother Jesse.

All the big trucks and rescue vehicles quite captured the little kid's attention.
Peter wasn't happy with all the loud sirens, but that might be because he can finally hear thanks to his tubes.

 This was taken at the beginning before the kids all collected a heck of a lot of candy.  It's mostly salt water taffy, which none of them really like that much, but the just the thrill of gathering free candy as it's thrown from the parade is so exciting.

The parade was Friday night and then Saturday morning I showed my true and undying love for my children.  At eight months pregnant I donned a swim suit (heaven help all the witnesses) and took my people to the local pool for free swimming and "diving for dollars".  Abe was working, so he wasn't there to take pictures.  Of course if he had photographed me in my condition in a swim suit I would have had to take him out.  Anyway, we had a pretty great time.  We came home and the girls (plus cousin Annie) watched a cooking show, which inspired them to have their own great cake bake off.  It took several hours and dirtied pretty much every single dish we owned.  But the results were impressive.

Team Annie and Faith.

Elinor and Bethany's creation.
Meanwhile, the adults all went out to eat together.  Yummy food.  Loud, but satisfying conversation:)

Late Saturday night the gang went to see the big fireworks show.  I stayed home with a sleeping Peter, but mostly because after the two days activities I was practically incapacitated.  I had over done it.

Georgie didn't quite make it to the end.

Sunday morning came very early after such a late night.  I like the patriotic ties.

Sunday night was a lot of fun at Daniel and Lori's house.  They hosted a pre-fox family reunion.  Because of the baby, we won't be making the trek to Spokane along with the rest of the family.  So at least for our family's sake we were very happy to get to gather a few weeks early.

A few little fireworks for the little kids.  Peter is not generally a snuggly little guy, but fireworks change all that.

The menfolk.

These girls are fun.

Besides my inability to keep up with anything, it was a really, really enjoyable weekend with family.