Re-Cap of Our Fourth

Wasn't that Smilebox slideshow fun? I might have to be playing around with those some more in the near future. But now that I have the time, we can get into the nitty gritty details of the day.

I tried to let Jason sleep in a little bit, so I had Easton downstairs for his juice and TV show...most days, weekend or weekday, he watches his show in our bed with his juice. But not today...I tucked him in on the couch instead, with his festive headband:


Pretty soon after that I let Dalton officially get up. He'd been up since 5:30 a.m. that day (and so had I!), remember? But here he is with his newest prized posession, Elmo:


Jason joined us just a bit later, so much for sleeping in, but 7:30 is better than 5:30.

Speaking of sleeping in, The Alabamaws were looking to do just that as well, so we had a morning of "What should we do?" till it was time to get them. It was supposed to be nearly 100 so we opted for Elitch's with our season passes as they have a water park too. Dalton, our early bird, fell asleep briefly on the ride down:


And we started with the carousel right by the entrance as per our usual routine:




Next stop, Kiddleland and E's roller coaster:

He was the only kid on it and there was no one in line. So, the ride attendant told him if he wanted to go around again to give him a double thumbs up, if not, a double thumbs down. Jason said he did so good with that. Except that on his second trip through J noticed E dabbing at his mouth, and he was bleeding! But he kept going and Diddles and I looked on:


Easton can't/won't tell us what happened. He denies that anything happened to his mouth and wanted to ride more stuff. So we did. When we rode the train Easton wanted to sit in the engine car, but parents aren't supposed to sit in the cars with roofs. So D and I sat in an open air car behind E and when I told Easton to smile he did this super cute pose all on his own:


When I zoom in you can see the cut on his gum:


Did the swings next:


And Dalton had to just watch again:


Easton did some more stuff Dalton couldn't do, but Dalton was perfectly happy with wandering around being followed by Daddy:


Eastie then said he wanted to go on this ride:

But I said, "Dude that's just a decoration, not a ride. But I'll take your picture in front of it, if you want." So that's what that is.

Jason and I were getting plenty warm by that point and we decided it was time to venture over to the water park side. We got Easton a life jacket and looked at renting a locker: $5 plus a $5 deposit. Um, no thanks...we weren't even looking to be there for more than an hour or so. Good grief! So I stayed by our bag and sent the boys into the wave pool:


With the life jacket Easton is pretty darn independent, but just standing there watching made me a little nervous for the "just in case" factor. So I waded in too...we just stayed near our bag and took turns with the boys in the shallower and deeper waters.

We moved over to their Pirate's Cove area with spray features and small slides and stuff to climb. Easton didn't need his life jacket anymore:


Everyone had fun and we just kept an eye on our bag again. Easton went down a slide and ended up somehow skinning his knee...so then we were ready to go:




The Maws called as we were driving back up the highway to our house. Jason dropped me and D off at the house for his nap and he went to get his mom and July and some lunch from Quizno's. Mmmm...toasty.

We had some lunch, and Easton joined Dalton in the sleeping department. We were hoping to let E stay up for the fireworks and thought a nap would be best to help with that. I told him you need to take a nap and first he said, "But I don't want to take a nap" I gave him a "look" and he added, "Please trust me." Ha!!!

But he fell asleep easily and we waited for my mom to come join us. Lauren was away on a camping trip so it was just Gramoo. She had called and asked what she could bring for our BBQ and I told her she didn't have to contribute but if she still wanted to, maybe some fruit. But I said, "Don't go overboard...we have some picky eaters and I don't want you to have to go to too much trouble." So she showed up with a gigantic, but beautiful, fruit basket from (yes, Kyla) Edible Arrangements:

It was some good fruit and both little guys enjoyed the presentation. Jason normally helps Dalton with his dinner but he would only take food from Gramoo that night. Pretty cute.

After our dinner of burgers from the grill (mixed by G-ma), corn on the cob nuked by G-ma (that's my new corn trick now!), beans, chips, and Gramoo's fruit bouquet we sat to play Scene It. We played older generation versus younger. I'm not sure everyone was happy with their "labels" but oh well. My mom changed it to "S Family" vs. "Non-S's" so that worked too. The little guys made it a little hard for us to get through the game and that is the excuse Jason and I are using for our loss to the Non-S's. Oh well. It was fun. And we also decided that Dalton wasn't going to make it through the fireworks. So we chased the boys upstairs:



...and they had a bath. Then I put D to bed. But not before getting a pic of him in the festive headband:

I'd worn it the entire day and Dalton promptly broke it as soon as he wore it. Darn. I don't even think there's a picture of me in it. Boo.

Easton showed off his "supporting the military" camo jammie pants and sparkly flag tattoo. His poses amused us:




Easton got to come back downstairs for our brownies and ice cream dessert and getting the chairs ready for the fireworks show. Eastie was a little amped up trying to keep himself awake and all, but he was good. Just excited. Just before 9:30 we headed out to our front yard and waited for the show to start:


Except for the little bit of tree and the street lamp in the way we've got a really great view of the fireworks:



If we're somewhat quiet we can even hear the music they play for all the people there watching. It's not too far away at all. In fact Ember, Ellis, Neo and their daddy parked at our house and walked over. It's close...and we love that Dalton could snooze away (with the monitor on the porch so we could hear him if the booms woke him) and the rest of us could enjoy the show. I was shocked that our next door neighbors' backyard fireworks didn't wake him...our windows were totally sounding like they were about to implode. Fireworks are illegal here and while that keeps most of our neighbors from setting off their own, it doesn't stop everyone. Oh well.

As soon as the grand finale ended we hustled inside, Easton said goodnight to everyone, I said good-bye to The Maws (they were leaving the next day) and I rushed Easton up to bed where he fell asleep quickly and easily.

And that was our holiday.

The end.