The Fourth

We had a fun and different Fourth of July this year. 

First of all, we went to the beach! We never go to the beach on the Fourth because it's SO crowded, but a group of our friends were all going so we joined in the fun. The funny thing about this group of friends is that there are five families and all of the families, except ours, has two boys all about the same ages. One of the families has an older girl going into high school so altogether we have nine boys (two boys weren't there in time for the picture) and three girls. So many boys!

The boys played for hours going back and forth from boogie boarding in the waves, to building opposing sand forts and attacking each other.

The weather was warm enough that I was actually motivated to go in the cold water. Hannah and I had a blast boogie boarding together. Hannah Belle could live at the beach all summer.

There's all nine of them! 

These two don't love the beach, and Ellie had gotten this miniature doll house that needed to be put together, so they stayed home and worked on that. It was a LONG process!

After the beach, we came home for a while and then went to one of the families' house for a pool party and barbecue. We left there at 8:00 to drive over to a parking lot where there's a great view of the fireworks. I think last year was the first year all of our kids even knew about fireworks. This was the first year we actually drove to see them instead of just watching them out our front yard.

After having watched them from pretty far away for so many years, it was pretty special to see (and hear!) them up close. We even had on a radio station playing patriotic music in the car. It seems silly, but it really did remind us how grateful we are to live in this country!