4th of July!

Seriously some of my favorite memories of when I was growing up are of the 4th of July and spending it with family and friends at the Meadowglen picnic/swim party and then having everyone over to our house for a party before fireworks. This year we had an awesome 4th of July weekend and hopefully started some traditions that James will remember as he grows up. We spent Friday and Saturday in Denver where we went to the Rockies game on Saturday with Dave and Katie and watched the fireworks at the field both nights from the deck of the condo. James was pretty alarmed when the first fireworks went off on Friday night and quickly retreated into the condo and watched them through the window. He did love them though and had names for all of them-Peter Pan fireworks, Christmas fireworks etc. He was ready for them on Saturday but informed us all he would be watching them from inside because they were too loud. I can't blame him really, we were only a few hundred feet from where they were being set off. Here he is with Papa and Daddy at the game (and his new BFF, Gobo the Fraggle-thanks Mimi!)

He had a pretty great view of the fireworks show from inside and happily stayed up past 11 each night waiting for the show to be over.
We headed back to the Mont early Sunday morning to begin our day of festivities. Clearly James needed a patriotic outfit for the occasion. This is what I get when I try to pose him for a picture anymore. Nice, huh?
We had friends over in the morning to hang out and have the kids decorate their bikes to ride to the patriotic concert in the park. James loved his pinwheel and kept asking us to turn it on because he could not get it to spin around when he blew on it.

He may be in serious need of a haircut, but I still think he is pretty cute.

James with his friends Mallory, John and Colin with their bikes decked out with Americana flair.


We walked to Thompson Park where the symphony played for a couple of hours. It was absolutely perfect weather and there were so many people there. The music was great and it was seriously the perfect small town America thing to do for the afternoon. People went all out with their picnic spreads-they had decorated tents and tables complete with patriotic centerpieces. We now know what to do for next year.


Playing tackle boy with the Haley boys. A crowd favorite.
After the kids all napped we met back up at another friend's house for a barbeque. The good weather lasted for a couple of hours before we had to move inside because of the crazy rain storm.

James and Mal were cracking us up because they are both super cautious and couldn't figure out how to drive Riley's Jeep. So when the two of them got behind the wheel together, we were waiting for disaster. Mallory was controlling the pedals and James was (attempting) to steer. They kept running into things and this picture of Mallory looking absolutely terrified pretty much sums up their ride.

It was raining so hard, we figured fireworks would be cancelled so we all went to Oskar Blues to hang out. Well they ended up starting the fireworks in the rain at 10pm. James kept saying how quiet Longmont's fireworks were (granted we were across town from them instead of a few hundred feet away) and we all stood in the pouring rain singing patriotic songs while we had a great view of the fireworks from the Oskar Blue's patio. James said his favorite patriotic song was 'God Bless the Usa Smurfs' and proceeded to sing God Bless the USA to the tune of the Smurf's theme song. He is pretty much awesome and it was the perfect end to the perfect day. Well done Longmont!