Fourth Festivities!

We had a great weekend filled with many activities to celebrate Independence Day! It all started last Friday night when our church hosted a fun evening with games, food, live music and fireworks! It was great fun and I didn't take any pictures! I spent the majority of the evening standing in line with Helen and two of her friends waiting to get their faces painted! Oh well! The fireworks and fellowship were great!

On Saturday evening we went to Nana and Papa's house and enjoyed a cook-out with all of the cousins present! That doesn't happen very often, so it was great fun! Here is a picture of all seven cousins! It sure is hard to get all of them to look in the same direction and smile...but a cute bunch of kiddos none-the-less! Yes, Helen is wearing a night-gown and Ty is wearing Superman pajamas in the middle of the afternoon!
After dinner, we headed out back by Papa's garden for some baseball practice. Beckett and Connor practiced pitching and Ty practiced throwing. It was fun watching the "boys of summer" play ball!

Another pic of Beckett, Connor and Ty taking turns pitching!

Then it was time for a ride on the "gator"!

Papa took us to the back of his property to pick and eat some blackberries! Yum!

Will didn't pick them.....but he sure liked eating them!

Then we rode over to the "creepy tree". That is what the kids call this particular tree that is dead and stands out in the middle of a field.

Then they hammed it up a bit to show how the creepy tree really creeps them out!

Back at the barn, Will had to sit in the seat of the tractor for a little photo session!

Then on Sunday after church, we headed downtown for the LC parade. This year, to kick off the parade, they held a "firecracker run" down Broadway for the kids. Beckett and Helen both participated and we were so proud of them. I posted two quick video clips at the bottom of this post of each of them running!

This was Will's first experience at a LC parade and it did not disappoint! Let me just say that this expression on his face just sums up a small town parade perfectly! He seems to be thinking, "Did I just see what I think I saw?

For example, men with funny looking hats on their heads racing little go-carts around and doing routines where they about crash into each other. How is that for entertainment?

And I kid you not, this guy was in the parade, riding in the back of a truck that had signs for one of the local candidates who is running for Judge. Yes, that is a monkey sitting on his shoulder and yes, it was wearing a diaper and drinking a water bottle. No wonder Will had that confused look on his face in the earlier picture. I'm not sure that I even understand this!

Now THIS is a float that I think makes sense at a Fourth of July parade! This is what it is all about!

Did I mention that at a small town parade, every person who is riding on some type of float, car, truck, ATV or go-cart, throws candy to the on-lookers? We came home with a Halloween-type stash of candy! (Except none of it is chocolate because it would melt immediately in this 95 degree heat~so that is kind-of a bummer!) Helen would grab the candy and stash it in the basket of Will's stroller. Well, somehow a dum-dum sucker made it into Will's seat! He managed to get the wrapper off and stick it in his mouth before I saw him, so he had his first ever sucker at the parade! He thoroughly enjoyed it and now he wants every sucker that he sees! Smart boy!

This is Helen running down Broadway in the Firecracker Run! Her video turned out blurry, but you can still see her hot, red face and sweet smile as she ran by me!

And here is Beckett as he ran by me toward the end of the race!

So proud of both of them!