I love the Fourth of July! Love. Our town has the sweetest parade, people throw the most amazing parties all along the parade route, the kids get oodles of candy, we see so many of our friends and by noon we are home. This year we walked in the parade for the first time with the girl’s soccer club but quit half-way when we made it to our normal parade route party at the MacBrydes! It was over 100 degrees so stopping for water, rest and shade was so perfect!

Right now we are in the calm. And while I LOVE the way we spend the morning of the 4th and I LOVE the way we spend the evening I really LOVE the calm. Where the house is dark and quiet with all the blinds closed, the air cranked up and ceiling fans whirring. Kids and Chris napping while I putter around doing random things.

Tonight we are having dinner at my parents with dear friends and pretending that the no-fireworks policy this year isn’t going to bug us. We’re going to eat incredible food and watch the kids run around and light sparklers. Staying up too late and laughing too much. It’s going to be awesome!

But right now I am going to enjoy the quiet!

We had to sit on a HOT parking lot for almost two hours waiting for the parade to start. It was nearly unbearable!

We finally found some shade to wait in!

When we finally started some of the first people we saw were our neighbor’s Tim’s parents, Lola and Mike, and our neighbor Cynthia. We were walking with Tim and their girls (Kelly was a HUGE wimp and sat with them!) so the kids were SO excited to see them!

Kelly! HA!

Gray didn’t even make it out of the parking lot before we tossed his tired+hot bottom in the wagon! Tim helped Chris pull because that wagon is heavy! Thanks Tim!

The girls LOVED handing out candy and seeing+hugging all of their friends as we passed!

That wagon is awesome but it really is heavy!

I kept forgetting to turn around and take a photo of our float! WG United came out with flying colors! I think we had the most people walking (most are behind us)!

When we got to JoAn and Ian’s house we gave up! I sat in the shade with my mom while the kids got more candy and played with their friends. Chris was happy hanging with the men and drinking a few bloody mary’s!

Kelsey is like my little sister… I’ve known her her whole life and she’s just as much family as any blood relative! I love watching her love my kids!

Quick photo tip! These would look SO much better if I had just gotten out of my chair and moved to my left so that the sun was coming in on them in the shade. These photos have a dark/green cast b/c I was too lazy+hot to move out of my chair! Thank goodness I don’t care too much and still love these despite their imperfections! I could have done more in PS to fix the issues but my calm is dwindling and I just don’t care that much! HA!

Time to go make my potato dish for tonight! I hope you all are enjoying your 4th today as well! I love watching blogs tomorrow for all the cool fireworks photos people take! Especially since we won’t see any this year!