4th of July

To celebrate Independence day, what could possibly be better than time in the pool?

 We blew up some of the bigger floats and spent hours in the water.

 And then, because we had stayed up late several nights in a row, and played in the sun and the pool for hours and hours, and because....  everyone was a little on the grumpy side....  we took naps.  Like, serious naps....  like 3 hour naps.  And it was pretty dang wonderful.

Then, it was time for BBQ and fireworks!

We let each of the kids have a roman candle so they could pretend they were wizards and that spells were coming out of their "wands".

 We eventually were able to convince Kaitlyn to do it, even though she was not super fond of the louse noise.

 Then it was time to bust out the sparklers!

 I usually try to play with my camera a little bit during Independence day.  The light makes for fun and interesting pictures....  esp if I knew how to use it better. :p

 I told them to spell out their names :)

 Then I had them all stand in a line and try to do it.

 Which gave us some fun pictures.

Then it was time for bed!  We had planned to have fun for Pop's birthday the following day.  Little did we know that that would not be what we remembered that day for at all.