Festive, Fun Fourth of July (Mostly)

Family. Friends. Fun. Food. Fireworks.

It was a crazy holiday weekend!

Columbus has a big 4th of July festival downtown called "Red White and Boom." It was held on Friday this year. We decided to go down to see the parade in the early evening. Jon had a great idea for us to take the city bus there and back. (It stops right in our neighborhood and the kids are always asking to ride it.) He had the route all mapped out.

The good news is that we had a really fun ride downtown and we enjoyed having a picnic dinner and watching the parade. The first bit of bad news is that my camera battery died after taking the bus stop picture. I would have loved to show you some shots of Jesus and Ronald McDonald, both of whom made appearances in the parade.

The really bad news is that the buses were all delayed after the parade and we ended up stranded in a really bad neighborhood at dusk! The short version of the story is that we got a cab to take us home. (The boys were thrilled they got to ride a bus AND a cab.) The longer version of the story includes a trip to a very seedy "Quik Mart", me praying "Hail Mary" and the Act of Contrition over and over in my head since I was sure we were about to be killed, me seriously considering stealing an empty SUV that was blaring the most obscene music I've ever heard, and me not speaking to Jon for about 18 hours. (This was the part of the weekend that prompted me to put "mostly" fun in the title of this post!)

We made it home from this adventure just in time to get into the van and go see the fireworks. It seems that we started a tradition last year when we decided at the last minute to go to the airport parking garage to see the fireworks display. This year ray dubbed it "Red White and Shhhhh!" (since we can't hear the booms at that distance.)

We spent Saturday chilling out and calming down. It was mostly a pajama day, with an afternoon trip to the pool.

On Sunday we attended the Baptism of our friends' beautiful new baby Kateri.

(Baptism pictures by Ray. You should see the other 40 he took... mostly close ups of various family members and friends. Quite amusing! But it kept him quiet.)

We enjoyed a cookout with baby Kateri's family and then later in the day we had the privilege of attending another fun cookout celebrating Adam's friend Ryan's birthday! (Woo hoo! I didn't have to cook all day!)

Ryan's grandma made the boys these cool Batman masks and arm bands. I love this shot with baby Noah reading a book in the background.

On Monday we attended the parade in our suburb.

The boys' favorite part was running to grab candy. They came home with a huge bag full of it!

On Monday evening we hosted yet another cookout with some family and friends.

Festive dessert

Card playing

Dress-up

Sparklers!

Check out this outfit!

Ray modeling his 4th of July hat and his Halloween costume.
You can tell this picture was taken way past his bedtime!

We finished the weekend by watching our suburb's fireworks display!

Ray made me hold his ears during the "booms".... yet Noah (7 months old) loved every minute of it. He was shaking his head and laughing and kicking... so cute!

God Bless America!