red white and blue

Oh beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, for purple mountain majesties, above the fruited plain. America! America! God shed His grace on thee, and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea.

happy fourth of july 2011....feeling patriotic and blessed. lots of red, white and blue love to you!

hottest year ever at the parade (i'm sure of it, ha!).....on the walk back to the car dragging gear and balancing the girls and wiping sweat, tyler and i talked about whether or not it was "too much effort".... but surely by next year we won't remember just how hot and sticky we were and instead the smiles on all the festive families around us and that feeling of TRADITION that we love. samantha was happy to see her friend lainey and nella and cousins ry and kyle. she snagged a couple of donuts from her pal and a cherry lollipop from the parade too. hehehe. she was into it. on the other hand... we took turns comforting kinsley after she had a meltdown when the firearms went off in front of us. our normally happy baby had only a few smiles between scared sobs. poor baby girl.

posing in front of kelle's very festive and beautiful wagon....

back at the house for a relaxing day swimming, napping and a little bbq too.

and we ended our night with another tradition....we headed to the same spot downtown on the beach and met the same crew as last year. love it. funny too as we looked around because all four of the families had a new baby since last year. kyle, kinsley, shannon and jordyn all celebrated their FIRST fourth of july.








watching the fireworks....