4th of July (part 2)

I went to visit my family for 5 weeks starting 4th of July weekend. Jordan flew out with me obviously because it would be impossible for me to do on my own. My family knew it would be a while before we were ALL together again, so we got family pictures done at a park near by. My sister's awesome friend came to take the pictures for us!! It was the 4th of July and she was missing out on time with her family, so it was so nice of her to do this for us. My family has grown quit a bit through the years....there are 22 grand kids and counting...

The pond at the park was really dirty, and freaked me out!!! Long grass surrounded it and you couldn't tell where it dropped off into the water. Having the water nearby (and ducks in it) really attracted my kids attention. I felt like I was going to have a panic attack! There were a few families at the park having picnics for the 4th of July and the ducks were loving the attention. All the kids were having so much fun feeding them our lunch rolls.

All of the kids watching and feeding the ducks

The kids also had a lot of fun at the playground near by

Jordan with my brother and brother-in-law

Gavin getting rocks out of his shoe

We then went back to my sisters house and watched the fireworks being lit off

Ayden and Gavin did not want to go near them, so they set up camp on these chairs for most of the night and threw some snaps.

Ava was a little timid with the fireworks at first and wanted to be held most of the time.
She did manage to burn her blanket with a sparkler though - I fixed the damage!

At the end she let loose; it was late and it was our 2nd night there after having a long flight the night before, so my kids did pretty well considering all the traveling

My brother Brett and his wife Allison with their daughter Payton

My nieces Payton and Hadley had the right idea. My other niece Ella is helping Payton out; she loves helping out with the ones younger than her. She'll make a great Mom!

My nephews Braxton, Jacob, and Jonah

At the end of the night when the fireworks were done and the toys from the garage came out, my boys got off there chairs


And of course, Ayden is testing everything out!