4th of July: Kids, Reunion, Anniversary, and Sparklers!

A few days before, David & Elizabeth worked on a little Independence Day book.

We used a potato to stamp some stars. This is Elizabeth's star paining:

The day started off cooking! Getting ready for the annual family reunion. Just about right; I forgot to take pictures at the reunion. It was a small turn out this year, but we had a good time. I especially noticed Momma's absence after lunch as the menfolk ended up outside visiting and the womenfolk ended up around the table inside. That's how it always seems to end up.

For the first time that I can remember, Dad showed up with flowers for me to celebrate our 12th wedding anniversary! And he got my favorite color, purple. Very sweet. : ) Friday night we were able to ditch the kids at Grana's and went out to dinner, just the two of us. It was nice. So on our actual anniversary, I cooked dinner for us at home. This scrum-dil-ee-umptious dish is a Pioneer Woman recipe: Summer Stir Fry. Fabulous. You should try it. Garlic, shrimp, zuccini, red onion, anaheim pepper, corn off the cob, served with brown rice. Mmmmm...

After cleaning up from dinner (the kids ate peanut butter sandwiches, boy they missed out), we made ice cream. Dad & Uncle Phillip headed down to the pond to fish. Curt & Suzanne showed up. As it started getting dark, we headed out & started with some poppers. Dad had a small light show of assorted fountains & Roman candles & bottle rockets, then we broke out the sparklers.

Dad & Uncle Phillip had a little fun with big handfuls of sparklers. I don't recommend this.

Mom's "special" sparklers:

Elizabeth was scared of the fireworks and was still nervous about the sparklers until she saw Mom & Dad sparkling too and finally gave it a try. Then she was hooked.

We lit 'em as fast as we could to keep up! We also were able to see the end of the fireworks show in town from our back porch! Rebekah slept through all the fireworks.