The WEEKEND of the 4th

What a weekend. We headed down to Richfield Friday afternoon and didn't come back till early Tuesday morning. We had a great time with lots and lots of memories made. Mom and Dad have been trying to get us down there for the 4th for many years now but Steves family always does their big swim party over the 4th but we skipped out and made other plans, since we were told the reunion was going to take the place of the pool party (though it didn't).

Saturday morning I woke up and went for a run along the canal path (very peaceful) then after breakfast we were off to Home Depot. Steve and the boys went and made their little projects and Dad and I went and picked out boards for the shadow boxes for the girls blessing dresses. Dad and I came home and got busy while Steve took the boys golfing.

here's working on the boxes

after lunch we decided to take a run through the sprinklers and fill up lots and lots of water balloons. No picture of the balloons cause I was the one filling.

Once again I forgot Railey's swim suit so we made do. She was so mad at me and throwing such a fit that Mom went and found some fabric and we wrapped her up and tied a few knots and she thought she had the most gorgeous suit on. I thought it was pretty cute myself.

see that tan line, she could have gone without a suit and everyone would have still thought she had one on. After dinner that night Steve and Dad took the boys over to play horse shoes while I took the girls for a walk to calm them down before bed. We were literally going all day long and had a blast doing it.

Sundays church didn't go too well for Railey she was so exhausted finally half way through sacrament meeting Steve took off to go put her down for a nap. But it was all good because there were so many visitors there probably wouldn't have been room in nursery for her or primary for the boys. Darc was saying that there were 21 regular primary kids and 36 visitors. Relief Society was the same. I have never seen so many visitors in a ward before. It was kind of cool. But it wasn't till going to church that I finally started seeing what a big deal the 4th is down there. Everyone comes back into town for it. Suddenly I was really looking forward to the next day and all the festivities. Here was a picture of the girls in their 4th dresses.

After dinner on Sunday we headed over to the park to play and run off some of the yummy dinner grandma made for us.

While we played on the slides and got pushed in the swings the boys played a round or two of boccie.

On Monday we woke up and had a great breakfast then headed off to the parade that we had heard so much about. Here we were waiting for it to start.

Now this parade is no Provo parade it's definitely a small town parade with all the businesses and lots and lots of cheer leaders and dance groups and even more tractors and such there are even a few 4 wheelers.

This was Steves favorite. he called it the plumbers float. Sad thing is this guy was more so monitoring the street and making sure people stayed back so we saw him quite a bit and nothing ever changed well maybe the pants got a little lower as time went on.

I don't know if it was being at the beginning of the parade route or what but the kids came home with quite the haul. So much candy is given out. Every one is throwing candy, ping pong balls, Frisbees. The kids came home and dumped their bags into a brown lunch sack and lets just say it filled each of their bags about 1/2 to 3/4 full. Isn't that nuts but I think it will be the only parade that I would ever get Steve back to. He had just as much fun chasing candy for Railey as the boys had. He actually quite enjoyed himself.

Here's the boys waiting for more candy.

Railey would not get off Grandmas lap, not even for candy unless Steve was holding her. See right at the beginning when the fire trucks and police went by to start things off they had their sirens going and it FREAKED her out and she was just content to sit there. I was kind of glad that I didn't have to worry about her at all.

Those that came along spraying mist were a welcome sight!

After the parade we headed over to the park to see all the booths and one was a dunking machine Seth wanted to be dunked and Damen wanted to do the dunking. I will try to post the little video of it at the end it was quite fun!

Here the kids fished and won a balloon that they filled up for you. Yeah it was free but they had fun doing it!

Someone ladies walked by and saw Hadlie and Kenna and said "Oh look at the twins, wait those aren't twins. But look at the legs on that little one Wow those are some legs." Yes they are and we are proud of them, might not be when she's 16 and still has them but right now we are!

So they have a fish grab. It's where they fill up these three pools with water and then dump fish (like they are doing above) into the water and then let kids go and try to grab the fish. The ponds are small maybe 20'x20' and for the 50-60 fish in each one there were about 150-200 kids per age group in each one. It was quite the sight (what we could see of it). Steve and Damen had a tee time so they were gone golfing but Steve made sure to tell Seth to bring him home a fish before he left. I didn't know how Seth would do. I thought he would be nervous to touch the fish and once he had it I didn't think he would know what to do with it so I told him to run straight for Jared and let him take care of it since I wasn't about to touch it. Well by the time I finally found Seth in all the kaos this is what he had.

Oh he was so proud! He told me he didn't need Jared he could kill it but I will tell you no fish has ever been kissed or loved or put up against a boys cheek so much as this one was. We headed home and had it for dinner but Seth was pretty upset that he couldn't have it as a toy, or stuffed animal and that he had to eat it. The disappointment all went away though when he learned that he got to cut it open and gut it. I guess that made up for not being able to keep it. All boy!!!!

Railey had stayed up for the fireworks the night before and we put her to bed but here is Seth and Kenna watching them. The thing about Richfield is they put their fireworks off on top of the hill so everyone can pretty much see them from their front lawn. Which is what we did. But the other thing about Richfield is that everyone buys illegal fireworks so starting about 9:15 and going till midnight you can see fireworks and pretty impressive fireworks. I guess the cops just don't really care. My kind of town. So we sat out and watched all night. It was so much fun!

Here's Jared helping the boys do some sparklers

Here's Damen ( I was working with my camera trying to figure things out so got a black and white to see if it would show up better than the other but it didn't)

Seth with his sparklers

Well after such a fun weekend it looks like the James Family has some serious competition now when it comes to the 4th. We had such a great time and didn't even miss swimming. When we asked the boys they said well we go swimming in warm water all the time at the pool. We asked if they missed their cousins and all they said was we were with cousins. So who knows we may just be in Richfield again next year!