Fourth of July Celebration

We had a wonderful 4th of July celebration on Friday. After hunting all over the newspapers and internet for events going on, we finally found a parade down at Birch Run. I was a little surprised at the lack of festivities in the area, compared to the ones I have been to in Utah and Idaho, but I guess the fireworks are the big thing to do here. They haven't stopped going off since Wednesday. So we went to the parade and it was pretty good. We were a couple of minutes late and I couldn't believe how easy we found parking and a place to sit. We didn't know where we were going, so we parked the van, walked a block, and found an open spot on the side of the road at the very beginning on the parade. That has never happened before (except at the Hill Spring parade). And we learned from this experience that the beginning of the parade is the place to sit. The candy came. And it kept coming...and coming...and coming. Soon, the kids were too tired of picking up candy so they just left it. This first picture is one of the only floats the kids would look at because they were too busy collecting candy.

Here is the loot below: (we had some more in another bag too. Not bad for a small town parade that lasted 30 minutes)

Cassie collected all this candy by herself. She walked away with more than Dylan.

We then went to Dairy Queen, because I love Dairy Queen and the only one in the area can be found down at Birch Run. Yummy. Dairy Queen ice cream is the best.

Then we came home for a couple of hours and headed over to the Bateman's for a BBQ. They sure know how to grill up some good food! The kids went swimming and we visited, played games and enjoyed the famous Bateman fireworks.

I love this picture of Cassie catching Caleb at the bottom of the slide:

Cassie was a little freaked out over the noise of the fireworks, hence why Nate is sitting with all the kids (Cassie is in his lap):

It was a great day. It has been so nice to have wonderful friends here to spend these holidays with that we would normally spend with family. I don't know what I would do without them!