4th of July FUN

we are always here for the 4th of july because of ben needing to work, so i have upheld some traditions and invite whoever can come to do so!  this year was a blast!!!  we started off on july3rd, having a dinner and baseball game down at the marsing highschool with ben's brothers and parents...emily too!  i invited eldon and lisa's family to come up, and they were able to make it after a few pitstops to work some bugs out with their new car. 
no pictures of baseball, but it was a lot of fun.  that is the great thing about ben's fam, there are so many of us that we have enough to fill teams on both sides in about any sport:)!!!  afterwards, we enjoyed the marsing fireworks from brad and jill's house and also let off a huge pack before heading home to tuck everyone in bed by 11:30...yikes!

we needed to be in melba by 7:30am  for the fun run and par tradition, we stopped at the white house for our breakfast. but this fast food was not fast!:)  so, i went ahead and ran and picked up all of our shirts and staked out our starting point.  ben got the kids there in plenty of time....the car took a hit with the burritos, but we made it.  bentley did awesome and went on ahead!  bridon and emerson kept trying to tucker out on me,  so i had them run and walk, run and walk...and somethimes ben would push them.  yah for fun runs!  lisa's family was on the sidelines cheering us on.:)

this year, i decided to stay for the parade.  ben had to head home, but lisa and eldon stayed and enjoyed it with us!  i stopped in at aunt doris' (ben has relatives in every town:) and showered and changed, and since we were there so early, we got a great place in the shade.  whoohoo!! (the heat was sweltering otherwise)

nothing like a good grocery sack of candy to devour.  i think tylee came out victorious.  her and emerson have a wicked sweet tooth.

after lunch and some down time, we set up the slip and slide and starting loading up water balloons.  we also made a 4th of july windsock.  the kids had so much fun playing in the water!  after awhile, all the water balloons were gone, so i let them fill up some regular sized balloons.  you can see the boys plotting and playing with their 'bombs'. 

after some biking and jumping to dry off, everyone gathered up their cash (that's what's in emerson's mouth) they'd been saving to go with uncle eldon to the fireworks stand.  they were all sold out!  a bust...only poppits were to be found.  we barbequed and ben got home right in time to join us for dinner and head up to the firepit for smores and our small selection of firecrackers, bottle rockets, and glow sticks.  the boys had a great time.  everyone ended up with serious mosquito bites and we were off to bed!

on saturday morning, the kids and i and lisa and eldon's family, went over to dorsey's to swim for a little bit.  eldon and i practiced saving someone in the deep end.  i was able to swim out all the kids...except i didn't try bentley, he would have to save me!  we got a subway sandwich and ate in the park and then our company had to leave and it was back to work, mowing and cleaning and the usual.  we had a such a fun time!  happy birthday to the land of the free!!!