Independence Day 2014

For the first time in ages, Nick had the 4th of July off of work; AND we were not travelling.

Nick worked on Memorial Day, so he didn't have to work on Independence Day.

And our annual tradition of vacationing with the Sims' over this holiday had to be postponed a week.  It'll be happening 7/12-7/15 this year.

 

So, we celebrated with our neighbors.

My Mom had just undergone surgery on her back; so none of my family was going to Grantsville.  Bummer.  We made the best of it, though.

 

We started the morning off at the annual pancake breakfast and bike parade that the Murdock family hosts.

This is the stuff memories are made of.

The kids played, while the adults visited and ate.
And then, they kids did the bike parade.
Reagan was insistent that she wanted to ride her bike, by herself, on the parade route.
I rode my bike, and pulled Cohen and Elsa in the bike trailer.
I matched pace with Reagan.  Which was pretty slow.

I snapped this picture, while I rode.  It makes my heart swell with pride.

Reagan came in dead-last.  But she rode her little bike the entire way.
It's always hard for me to see Reagan struggle with things that come so easy to other children.  Riding a bike is one of them.  But she did it.

By the time the parade was over, it was hot.  And all of my kids were cranky.
Nick was crazy, and went golfing with his brothers at 3:30PM that afternoon.  Golfing in triple-digits?  That's commitment.

I took the kids to the grocery store, and picked up stuff to grill and eat for dinner.
Nick's brothers came back to our house, after golfing and we had a BBQ.

Then, we waited around for it to get dark.  Nick watched Honey, I Shrunk the Kids with the girls.  Reagan cried, and cried during the scene where the ant dies. 
I dozed on the couch with Cohen.

At a little after 9PM, Kelli, Josh, and Kenzlee Peay (our dear neighbors) came over, and we did some dinky drive-way fireworks.
Then, we walked down to the elementary school, sat on the grass and watched the firework show that the high school was putting on.
Kelli bought my kids enormous glow sticks!  She's awesome, and thoughtful that way.
My kids had more fun running around, than they did watching the firework show.
It was a late night.

We were all looking forward to sleeping in on 7/5.  But Reagan had different plans for us...
She woke up before anyone else, and decided that she wanted to see if her glow stick was still glowing.  So, she opened the door to the garage (because the garage is dark); and she set off our alarm.
She thought she was going to be in trouble, so she shut the door, ran back to her room, and dived under the covers.
Nick and I were both still sleeping; and didn't hear the alarm going off.

But Nick did hear the pounding on our door that followed, shortly thereafter.
The police showed up, to investigate; and were knocking on our door.
It took a while to piece the whole story together.  Reagan wasn't terribly forthcoming with details.
It wasn't a great way to be awoken.
But at least we know the response time, by the police, is awesome; when our alarm goes off.