4th of July

We had a blast this 4th of July.  My sister and her family were in town and so was my brother and his wife.  We played ladder ball all weekend long, which is now one of our favorite outdoor games.  I'll be honest Spence and I lost to every other couple.  Of course Spence being who he is couldn't let that happen so he spent the weekend honing his skills and by Monday we were definitely holding our own.  Ok I should say he was.  I'm still shocked when I see the ball actually catch on the pipe.  Julie planned a whole fun day of games.  We started out going to the parade in Provo.  It was as long as ever, but I loved seeing all the fun bands, floats, and businesses.  The flyover at the beginning is always my favorite part.  We thought it would be perfect weather and it was for half of it.  Then the clouds parted and the sun tried to melt us where we stood.  This is when several members of the group went in search of shade.  Later at my mom's and dad's we played games.  The kids attempted different types of races including a 3-legged one.  Keep in mind our age range is from the oldest being 6 and the youngest that could participate is two.  The boys were competitive and wanted to win.  Lizzie and Berk would run right up to the finish line and stop waiting for the other one to cross.  Julie did a great job with all the prizes and the kids had so much fun.  Aside from ladder ball all the couples and the older kids played a game of water baseball which was awesome!  I actually jumped and rolled onto the trampoline (second base) and looked cool doing it!  For those of you who remember my karate practices I think you'll understand how amazing it is that I did that.  The balloon toss simply became a water fight among everyone.  You can't have a good 4th without a water fight right?  There were a bunch of fireworks, but the rain and wind didn't help much.  I love these aerial fireworks.  Now we don't even have to buy our own, just sit out on the deck and watch all around us.  Lizzie was sick with whooping cough and didn't like the fireworks, but we've finally figured out her fear of them.  First, she likes glow sticks so that brought her out of her whining.  Then after that she just didn't like the big fireworks close to her.  Her eyes have always been crazy sensitive though.  Since she was an infant if it was bright outside her eyes would just water even if it wasn't directly in her eyes.  It's always been the same with fireworks.  She gets nervous when they're so close too.  She loves the big ones if they're farther away.  So now we're going to try not being directly under the big firework shows at the ball games.  We'll see how it goes on the 23rd.  Back to the 4th, there were so many fireworks.  My favorite was doing the flowers in a bucket of water.  The spluttering sound is so funny to me.  For our big firework show we of course went to a ball game the Friday before with most of my family.  What better way to celebrate America than at a ball game?
Here are a couple pictures of Lizzie and Berk.  I was enjoying myself and only snapped a couple.  Spence has a few more from the parade, but one of the reasons I haven't updated was waiting to get those pictures on.  I figured I might as well just get caught up. :)

 Playing at "first base" where to be safe you had to dump a cold soaked sponge on your head, or dunk your whole head in the cooler which is what most of us did.

 One of Lizzie's favorite things of summer is the snaps.  I even got a video of her chasing me around throwing them at my feet.

 I could not pass up posting this picture with the look on their faces!  We were doing fireworks and needless to say they were both worried. :)  I'm sad I don't have more of everyone, but Spence does so I'll put those in our photo album.