Happy 4th of July

Today was Independence Day. Nana and I decided to take the kids to the local morning celebration at a small park which we went to last year. They have a band, balloons, speeches and a parade at the end with ice cream for the kids.

Things got off to a great start with Andrew not wanting to leave his binky and duck behind. Then he wouldn't smile for a photo with all three kids on the porch.

Gina took her scooter and Andrew took the trike with Dylan in the stroller. A block from the house though Andrew was having a tough time with the trike so we ended up carrying the trike for the rest of the way. Once we got to the park, Gina started to whine and complain about listening to the band (a clue we should have left right away) but after seeing all the balloons, she seemed happier.

There were quite a few people there, mostly sitting in the sun on the grass. The one drawback of the park is that it has very little shade. Gina went off to play on the swings for awhile and Andrew was happy with a pinwheel.

After about an hour though, we were all hot and decided to skip the parade and have ice cream at home. The kids though were not happy about riding back. They wanted to go home, just not walk or ride. Gina didn't want to ride her scooter and Andrew still didn't want to ride the trike. So Gina rode the trike even though she is way too big for it and I dragged the scooter along with Nana pushing Dylan in the stroller. It seemed to take forever to go just a few blocks, with Gina complaining the whole way.

The day improved a little later with a visit from Uncle Steve. Nana got to escape the kids for a little while, going with Steve to get coffee and once they returned, the kids had a grand time playing with him.

With the heat, I decided not to cook and instead, we had pizza on the front lawn. Once we were done, they kids had fun running through the sprinklers until they turned blue from being cold. After all that running around after dinner, they went to sleep easily for once, listening to the fireworks going off in the distance. Maybe next year they will get to see the fireworks.