Happy 4th of July

What a great day! After waking up way earlier than necessary to go with the Mendenhalls to the pancake breakfast, the older girls helped me decorate the yard and their bikes with our 4th of July decorations. A ton of people showed up for the neighborhood parade and bbq - we even had specatators on the parade route (ok, like 3 spectators, but still)! Of course, the older girls took off so fast I didn't even see them, since Lauren, Jani and I were bringing up the rear - so no great parade pictures this year. The kids had a great time eating hot dogs, watermelon and they went a little crazy with the Otter Pops. Lets just say that when I told them they could have as many as they wanted I did not think they were going to be competing for some sort of record. Ashley was pretty proud of her 16 and I think Brooke was right behind her with 14 - pretty impressive. To finish it off the fire truck made it just as we were cleaning up (I guess they had other priorities, like an actual fire :)) - Ashley was the only one who wanted to get in and try out all the different parts of the truck, while Brooke was actually being quite nice to the firemen offering them water, hot dogs, etc. They actually hung out for quite a while eating some lunch and chatting with the neighbors that were left (hot tip - if you live in a house that is over 10 years old, you might want to replace your whole smoke detector, not just the battery). Anyway, they were really nice and it made for a fun time.

Mendenhalls always go to her parents for the 4th and this year we joined them after a nice long nap. We had so much fun barbecuing/swimming/talking/marshmallow roasting and firework watching. They have a great view of a few fireworks shows, but Lauren was freaking out as they got going. Luckily, I think it was just the anticipation because after about 5 minutes she was just fine and pointing out "that's my favorite", "I like the green one" and , "awesome, that one was big" were my favorite lines about the fireworks. As we were rolling out of their house she even said, "I like fireworks - they're not scary" yeah, we know.

Oh, and our first summer trip to the beach yesterday was a little cold and we had a little bit of sunburn, but everyone had fun for about 3 1/2 hours, so we will definitely be going back.