Independence Day

I love Independence Day, or what Melanie lovingly refers to as "America's Birthday". We started the day with a our own version of "raising" the flag. The girls enjoyed participating in putting up the flag.

After breakfast, we went to the Airplane Museum. It was so beautiful outside. It was the perfect day to visit a hanger.

And the girls loved the airplanes.

So did the boys!

After the museum, we decided to go to the park. Oliver got his first swinging experience and he loved it!

The girls had fun on the slide.

The rest of the day was spent at home. I let the girls paint on Tuesday and I used the paintings to decorate. They made the pinwheels and some hanging artwork in the living. It is fun to decorate.

Around 3 or 4, a good friend of mine called up and asked if her kids could come over for a little while while she attends to an emergency. My kids were so excited to have friends over. I sent them all out back (because lets face it, when do you ever get to enjoy nice weather in the middle of July in Arizona? This was truly a blessing). I made these "bubble blowers" for each big kid and let them at it.

I think they enjoyed themselves.

Jason enjoyed playing out back and watching the crazy kids with the bubbles.

These kids definitely had fun!

We ended the day with a BBQ, and root beer floats!

Happy Independence Day!

The Greatest Show on Earth

The Greatest Show on Earth was in town this past weekend (i.e. the circus). My dad called me on Saturday and asked if would be interested in joining him to go to the circus for the Monday show. I will admit, I was a bit hesitant at first. Melanie had been easily scared at the movie on Saturday with my mom, and I wasn't sure if she would be able to sit through the circus. I didn't want my dad to pay for 4 tickets to have us leave early on. I called a few people that I knew had gone, and heard good things. So, I decided, why not? I'm so glad we went.

We picked my dad up Monday morning and headed over for the 11 o'clock show. We were a little late getting in, because the ticket line was not cooperating with our desire to see the whole thing, but I don't think we missed much.

I wasn't able to take a bunch of pictures because the lighting was not right, but I did get a few.

My favorite were the gymnasts. I can't imagine how much 3 men and one woman stacked on top of each other weigh, but the guy holding them all up was amazing. Seriously. I mean, it's neat that the one could be thrown up and land on the top, but I was more amazed at the guy at the bottom. And it wasn't like all of the men he was holding were little. They had to be big enough to hold the loads they were holding. (Leave it to an engineer to be thinking about loads and forces at the circus). It was really neat.

Noelle's favorite things were the elephants, which is not a surprise considering they are her favorite animal.

The last thing at the show was the motorcycles in what I call the "ball of doom". And you can't count them in this picture, but there were 8! Seriously! THAT is the definition of crazy, I have decided!

Thank you Grandpa for taking us to the circus.

Celebration of Freedom

This last weekend was the Celebration of Freedom block party in down town Mesa. We decided to go on Friday to check it out. It was definitely fun. (but we knew it would be because we went last year).

My favorite part of the celebration is the historic strip that has blow up monuments and American Flags flying everywhere. Here are some pictures from that strip.

The American Flag has a way of making me stand in awe. I love that someone was willing to take a picture of the entire family for me.
It was fun to share a little government and history with the girls.

These following flags were made out of Legos! (I kid you not!) It is something!

There was a car show going on. Brandon and the girls enjoyed looking at the different cars... Oliver and I just loved hanging out.

There was a booth full of birds. The people working the booth were sharing these birds with the crowd. They were beautiful! I learned some interesting facts about these birds. For instance, they can live to be 80-90 (for the littler macaws) and 120 for the larger ones. Did you know that? because I didn't!

The girls loved checking out the samurai.

And finally, we checked out the fire truck! The firer fighters were really nice and sent the girls home with a lot of fun things. We really liked this booth.

The Celebration of Freedom was a lot of fun! I'm glad we were able to check it out!