4th of July : Part 2

After we left the farm, we hurried home to get the kids ready for fireworks. We decided to stay pretty close to home this year, so we went to see the Mystic Lake display for the first time. I look HORRIBLE in these photos, but I had all I could do to get our kids clean and into pajamas and a shower for myself, so no glamor here!

When we got to the parking lot we were going to watch from, we set up our chairs and utilized our tailgating option with our Stow-and-Go van seats. Gotta love a mini van! I swore for years I would never get one, but as I've said before now I don't know what I would have done without it.

Then there was quite a wait, so we did a little running around and playing (not to mention two bathroom breaks in the weeds behind some casino busses!).

Kara came and met us to watch...she had to work at Canterbury immediately after, so she drove separately...but people must have thought a celebrity was showing up the way the kids greeted her! She and I sat in the tailgate seats with Beckett in between us. He was so dang funny loving us up so much...again I look terrible in these pics but I need to post them to remind myself how funny he was that night.

Ave of course was not impressed with the loud noise during the fireworks...it really freaks her out...but handled it pretty well. This is the first year Beckett really understood what was going on and he loved it. None of my fireworks pics really turned out, but you know what those look like anyway, right??

Because there were so many people in our neighborhood shooting off firecrackers when we got home, we knew Avery would NEVER go to sleep in her bed alone. We decided to take the opportunity to have a family camp out in our basement with the sleeping bags. It was totally fun (I should have taken pics, but apparently I was too tired??) and we plan on making it a yearly event.