4th of July

Our neighborhood always throws an annual 4th of July block party. This year because of church on Wednesday, we postponed it to the 5th. We are normally cleaning and getting the house ready on the 4th, so it was fun to do other things this year!

We drove a whole 10 minutes to Farragut (sooo much nicer than driving downtown!) for the 25th annual 4th of July Parade.

The Police Department started it off...

 ...including helicopters flying flags! They were SO LOW!

Henley and Gavin had a blast...

 ...because EVERYBODY that came by in the parade threw them candy!

Gavin's first Pixy Stix. Oh my.

As much as Henley loves cows from afar, they terrify her up close!

So fitting for this week--Andy Griffith club:

Gavin's favorite, of course:

Henley was in heaven with her Daddy holdng her...

...and mouthfuls of candy:

Hmm...maybe this was Gavin's favorite:

 Heaven:

Love these precious kiddos!

(Please check out Henley's patriotic shoes!) 

This boy. While Ryan and I were watching the parade, we did not notice when Gavin unwrapped THREE suckers at once...

"Hmmm, will they all fit?"

Why yes they do.

Love this pic. These kids love their dad so much it's a bit sickening. :)

Now onto our party on the 5th...

Flag kebabs!

Man, these stinkers have grown a lot since last 4th of July. I found this pic and had to set it out:

I have to document my ridiculousness. Decorating for the kids' parties has ruined me. So of course I had to decorate for the 4th, including a pic of last year's fireworks!

(By the way, this Subway Art is my new favorite thing! And it's free for every holiday!)

Our neighbors set up the world's longest slip n slide every year. The rain couldn't stop us from still enjoying it this year!

 Henley LOVED it!

Gavin is a little daredevil too and went down all by himself this year! But it was COLD!

You can see the few that braved the Slip n Slide and the onlookers with umbrellas. :) Everybody else is on the porches in the background to stay warm and dry:

I even went down during the party this year! No pics of me going down, so Ryan took a pic of my soaking wet clothes as proof:

All the kiddos. My, how are # of kiddos has grown since the first time we did this!

Kim & Rev:

(The Slip n Slide made my hair crazy curly. And see Henley in her footed pj's (thanks Aunt Joanna!) in the background? This girl was SHIVERING from the water!) 

The Hamiltons:

(Liz--is Maddie asleep??)

The Oldacres:

(Love this pic, Mel!)

A few attempts at capturing Jamie's amazing fireworks display 

(I am such an amateur photographer!) 

Our neighbors got these awesome Wish  Lanterns this year:

Like from the movie Tangled!

They floated off like a balloon and you could see them for miles away in the sky. So cool. And probably a serious fire hazard if it went badly!

Here's a video to kind of show how it starts to float when it gets hot enough:

Jamie: our fireworks pyromaniac, Slip n Slide of death creator, and grill master.

I think he's smiling here at a successful day, despite the rain storm.

Don't these guys look so masculine with this!? Ha!

It was such a fun 2-day holiday! Today is Ryan's 3rd day off this week (yay for vacation days along with holidays!) and the kids are fast asleep napping (which doesn't happen often anymore). We are loving taking it easy today!

Dollywood

Ever since we got our Dollywood season passes back in December from Ryan's grandparents, we have been wanting to go back, but the weather hasn't cooperated or we've been too busy to go as a family. (Ryan's parents took Gavin a couple weeks ago without us so he's becoming a regular Dollywood kid! :) ) 

So Ryan took the day after Memorial Day off and we went for the BBQ and Bluegrass Festival.

The day started off like this for Henley. And this is just in the parking lot. Pretty telling of how the rest of the day would go, the stinker! Ryan said, "You're going to have fun and you're going to like it!" Ha! :)

Here are the kiddos dancin' a jig to a bluegrass band:

The BBQ was pretty awesome! We kind of skipped breakfast and ate a really early lunch as soon as we got there. It worked out perfectly! Full bellies=happier kiddos to ride rides!

I could not be more impressed with daredevil Gavin. The trick is--don't ask him if he wants to ride the ride, just tell him, "We are going to ride this ride!" and he would do it! He LOVED this one!

Here's a video that shows him LAUGHING at this crazy ride!!

This is the only ride Henley let us put her on, and even still she started crying half-way through! Apparently she didn't get the memo that she was supposed to have fun today. :)

This crazy boy loves the Carnival area to play games. So we bought him a bucket of balls and he won this huge Smurf on one of his first throws! He had to get a ball into 1 colored cup and he made it!! 

He also won this Angry Bird on a different game! People--Ryan and I did not help him! I asked the guy if he gets more winners from adults with skill or kids accidentally getting it in and he said kids on accident. Hilarious!

Henley was SO TIRED so we rode the train during what would normally be her naptime. It was a well deserved rest for all of us!

I don't have a ton of pics of Henley because she was in a bad mood and wasn't feelin' any of the rides. Here she is dancing to the music after her rest on the train:

We found out on the train that there is a "Parent Swap" area on the adult rides where 1 parent waits with the kids in a designated area while the other parent rides the ride, then they switch. WOA! So my crazy husband convinced me to ride The Wild Eagle. OH MY WORD. I would like to point out that I haven't even ridden a normal, non-life-threatening roller coaster in about 10 years, so it literally took my breath away. I had NO CLUE what I was in for. The first huge drop went into a loop and I opened my mouth to scream and nothing came out. I was SHAKING by the end. Whew, I may be too old for roller coasters. :) This pictures doesn't do it justice:

I promised Gavin we could ride this ride next time. He loved shooting the people with water guns as they passed:

This was Gavin's perch for most of the day. It was so fun to have Ryan there with us!

And the kids looked like this before we even got out of the parking lot! 

Ryan and I are going back by ourselves to celebrate his 30th birthday! Can't wait! I'm sure he'll convince me to ride The Wild Eagle again. Oh my.