Fourth of July

Is this summer flying by quickly or what?? Yesterday was the first day of school for kids in our area, and I'm still blogging about the 4th. It's hard to keep up with! This has really been a busy, fast-flying past several months.

Not long after getting home from Alabama, the 4th hit us. I was so happy to NOT be pregnant this year so that Andrew and I could participate in Highlands Ranch's "Family Fun" Independence Day 5K together (we had done that the summer before last and loved it). It was, luckily, a cool morning and we could bring the kids along in our jogging stroller, and...the race ended where the town's 4th of July parade began. Perfect.

All was said-and-done with our fun run just after 9:00 a.m. and we were starving! We had been awake since 6:30 without eating breakfast, so we walked to a place across the street from the parade called "The Egg and I" and heartily scarfted down a YUMMY omlet and pancake breakfast on their patio. We could hear the bands and see the floats & large balloons from our table. Perfect.

There was a city celebration right where we were too. We saw a number of booths from local businesses offering activities and food, and Taylor couldn't keep his eyes off of a large inflatable tiger and the face painting there. We were suckers and treated him to both ($2.00 each). While he loved the "fire" that a local artist painted on his forearm, the little nerd didn't do anything in the inflatable. Maybe he was soaking up his special memory of being in a tiger...not sure, but I'll keep telling myself that. :)

We took our boys home for afternoon naps and in the evening we met-up with my grandparents at their neighborhood park to play in their pool a little and have a holiday BBQ.

Afterward we caravaned to our favorite spot for fireworks near the corner of Belleview/Windermere. We played with sparklers and visited while we waited for the big show--which was awesome this year.

By the end of a very full day, we had worn our boys to exhaustion! Those sweet little guys crashed on our drive home from fireworks. I love watching them sleep like that. Angels.