two down and one to go

So, not only was this probably one of my favorite 4th of Julys ever, but I also accomplished one of my New Year resolutions! What you may ask? If you remember I had three: first, I wanted to donate blood, second, make a lemon meringue pie, and third, ride on a four wheeler. A few months ago I gave blood, but that didn't turn out to well, and for the fourth I made two lemon meringue pies. I'm beginning to become a little worried about the whole 4 wheeling thing now, because those pies where, let's just say more like lemon pudding:) Although I do think for pudding they tasted pretty good.....At least I know how to fix them for next time: use a double broiler. We started out the day early in Bigfork to watch the parade. I have to say I missed not going for two years and was really excited to go. Steven came over to our house early and even though we were a good 45 min early, we still had to park aways away. Oh, well, the walk was worth it. Sorry I don't have any pictures of the parade, but we forgot the camera.

Oh, funny story.... The last car in the parade was throwing full sized candy bars quite generously and Luke and Steven both caught a few. But was 3 enough for Luke? Nope. So Luke chased the car the rest of the way having the guys on the car throw them at him. At one point I guess the guy told Luke that if he could catch up to the car, he would give him 5. He did. All in total Luke came home with 19 candy bars. Haha, my funny brother, but his insanity paid off in the long run (pun intended).

Steven brought over sooo many fireworks, and then James brought over a load too.

People started coming over to our house around 5:00 and I was really grateful it was such a wonderful temperature outside because in total we had around 39 people come over. Yup, quite the group.We had a BBQ dinner and lots of other goodies. I have to say I'm a bit of a watermelon addict:) We so seldom have it, and when we do only for the few short months of summer, so I love the fresh flavor. *yum*While waiting for it to darken up the boys (and girls), played various things. They even had a short lived game of soccer going. I found out I suck at soccer. It was sad to see, but we made up a pretty pathetic game of badminton too. I guess those muscles are still hibernating:)I think James and Steven were really excited for fireworks because we started them pretty early. They were really great though, we had just about everything you could think of, plus more.Some people tried out the stilts dad made for Luke but none were quite the master my brother was!Poor Cleo was sooooo terrified of the fireworks she hid in the van in the garage. We had to lock Shelby up too because she was barking at every "bang" she heard, which as you can imagine is quite annoying after the second firework.The boys put on a terrific show this year! Steven did an awesome job entertaining us all and even did a fantastic grand finale. You can't see too much in this picture, but if you look close you can just make out Luke, Steven, Christian, and Matthew about ready to do some pyromaniac endeavor.

*sigh* It was such a great day. I was never bored and I do think that this was my favorite fourth ever. I highly doubt that I will ever have a fourth that will live up to this one: Great day with Steven, great parade, great afternoon, great evening, great fireworks, and overall just a great time with everyone I love.