Red, White & Blah - 4th of July 2021

Our 4th of July was a little different this year because I came down with a bad case of mastitis a couple days right before the holiday weekend. I woke up on Friday and immediately knew something was wrong. I was supposed to take the kids to Lubbock for a day trip, but I cancelled that I made a virtual urgent care appointment instead. Even after starting antibiotics, I still felt awful for the next 36 hours.

It was a rough day and I don't think I did much more than throw some food at the kids and tell them to watch tv. Luckily, it was the weekend so Dave was able to take over parenting for the remainder of the weekend after he got home from work on Friday. Sadly, we ended up missing the 4th of July parade and firework show on Saturday, but I did feel well enough Sunday evening for the neighborhood block party. 

Davey made some bad choices that led to him staying home from the party with Dave, but I took the other kids out to meet friends at the park. There was a catered dinner, lots of booths giving away free samples (Sophie and Emery collected many treasures), and the wildly popular self-serve snow cone truck. It was a fun night and I'm glad we were able to get a little celebrating in this year. Hopefully next year we'll get to see fireworks again!

I took the traditional 4th of July picture of the kids in front of the house in their patriotic wear before sending them off to church with Dave. Then I took a nice nap.

The kids all had so much fun adding syrups all on their own

Sophie and Emery with their promo glasses, towels, and snow cones

Charlie and Griffin were so messy by the end of the night! Just looking at the photo of Griffin eating snow cone with his hands makes me feel sticky.

Sammamish Summer - Travel & the Fourth of July

Thanks to COVID, Dave was teaching his summer term virtually and we were able to head to Seattle a little earlier than normal! Unfortunately our travel out wasn't very smooth due to a booking problem. I wasn't able to check in to our flight online, and when I tried to call the help desk it essentially told me the hold queue was so long I would never reach anyone. That meant we had to sort things out at the airport, and during that time they started giving our seats away to standby passengers. Ahh!

Dave rushed through security alone to get to the gate as fast as possible to start fixing things, which left me with 4 kids, 4 backpacks, 3 carry-on suitcases, 1 diaper bag, and 1 stroller. I was a disaster! It was good our pool trips had given me so much practice at moving a bunch of kids and stuff from Point A to Point B. When we got to the gate we found out that all our seats were gone except one and they could only rebook us in middle seats scattered around the plane. We told them that wouldn’t work, but they wouldn’t move things around. Once we got on the plane though, the attendants realized putting our kids in middle seats for a 4 hour flight all spread out was a bad idea and they helped us get back near each other. The rest of our flight was pretty uneventful, thank goodness!

We should have had a middle seat for Griffin before the booking fiasco, but in the end we were happy to just be sitting next to each other. Poor Griff had to have his naps on the floor though. 

We made it to Sammamish in time to celebrate the Fourth! The firework show on the lake was cancelled, but the kids had fun just doing sparklers, fountains and flowers in the driveway.

After the kids were in bed, I went out on the boat with my parents to watch smaller shows happening on the docks all around the lake. Some of them were pretty impressive! We also saw a police boat attempt an ambush, since fireworks this size are actually illegal.

4th of July Pictures

July marks the anniversary of our arrival in Texas and every year I like to take a photo of the kids in their patriotic clothes in front of our house with the flag. It is always crazy to look back and see how much they grow and change! This year we actually had to fake it and take photos in June, because we were going to be traveling for the entire month of July - one of the perks of working virtual. Even though everything in the world and country seems to be going down hill, we still feel blessed to be Americans!

Looking back at 2018 and 2019

Individuals of the kids, except for Griffin who needed a sister assist

Happy Fourth of July 2019!

We had a fun-filled Fourth this year!! Our morning started with a parade down in Canyon, then I took the kids swimming to get them tired so they would take naps. The plan worked perfectly and everyone rested for most of the afternoon. For dinner we went to our neighborhood Independence Day BBQ, which was great! Last year we skipped it because there was a ward potluck, but the neighborhood event was much better - sorry Tascosa ward. 

After the party we let the kids watch a movie and then we drove back down to Canyon for the fireworks show. Dave and I were both braced for this part, because although the show is good, last year we got caught in horrible traffic on the way home and we didn't get back until 11:30. Ugh. Fortunately things went much better! The show started early thanks to cloud cover and no moon, and then we took a back way home and beat the hundreds of cars back to Amarillo. We actually made it home at the same time the show ended last year - success!!

Picture of the kiddos in front of the flag

Waiting for the parade to start

Charlie hung back with us while Sophie and Davey stood in the street to see better and collect candy

It's really not a very exciting parade - just a bunch of different vehicles rolling through. Most don't have music or even much decoration, but the kids still had a great time. 

Davey struggled to beat the big kids to the candy most times and this nice boy gave him his entire haul. Now we have enough candy to just skip Halloween. 

He was so thrilled that one of the trucks had water guns

Our picnic had a catered dinner of BBQ sandwiches and a Sno Cone truck!! I may have had three :) There was also face painting, a craft, games, and inflatables for the kids. 

Charlie hanging out while the big kids were in the bounce house

Waiting for it to get dark

Happy Fourth of July!!

Video: A few clips from our day (mostly because the kids looove to watch these later!)

Fourth of July 2018

Last year we were in Dallas, so this was our first 4th of July here in Amarillo. Ideally we would have gone up to Seattle to spend the holiday with my family and see the fireworks out on the lake, but Dave's summer course was still in session so we were home this year. On the Sunday before we dressed in our patriotic clothes and had Liz take a photo of our family that actually turned out pretty well!

Unfortunately Sophie informed us as we were heading out to church that her stomach hurt, so she ended up staying home with Dave. A few hours later she threw up - poor girl :( Luckily it was just a 24 hour bug, and she bounced back quick so no holiday fun was missed.

Some pretty cute kids!

Popsicle bath for my sick girl

On the 4th we went down to Canyon for their annual parade. Sophie had Ooey Gooey Camp at the Discovery Center and didn't want to miss the water fight they had planned for the day, so Dave and I just took the boys. We found a nice shady place to set up our chairs. It wasn't the most amazing parade, but Davey loved seeing all the trucks and sirens. 

Charlie in his patriotic pants

That evening we had a ward dinner at a park, and then drove back down to Canyon for fireworks. We met up with another family from the ward and the kids had fun running around with their glow sticks and blowing bubbles while waiting for the show to start. The kids were all surprisingly pleasant, even though we kept them up several hours past their bedtime to see the show. On the way home we got stuck in horrible traffic, but luckily found a neighborhood side street that eventually let us break free to get home just before 11 pm. It was a long, but fun day. Happy Birthday America!!

Videos: A few short clips from the day

Sammamish Summer 2016 - Part Two (4th of July)

We had a typical northwest 4th of July, meaning that it was cool and rainy.  We hung around the house in the day and let the kids play. Luckily the weather was never enough to threaten the fireworks, and we were able to go out on the boat in the evening to watch the lake show which never disappoints!

Sophie with her cousins Will and Anne. They played so well this trip! Sophie is already looking forward to seeing them again at Christmas. 

My dad grilling our burgers in the rain

The kids had some ice cream cones out on the deck where they could watch little firework shows going off around the lake. Sophie insisted she wasn't cold, but it made me shiver to look at her. 

Only in the northwest would you need to wear a down coat in July :)

Once it got dark we went down to lake. The neighbors do a good show off their dock that we watched before going out on the boat. The noise was a bit much for Sophie because they were right over our head, but she wasn't scared!

A lovely picture of us on the boat headed out for the big show. Davey was a brick in his life jacket, but didn't protest too much and eventually fell asleep and stayed out for the rest of the night. 

The fireworks are launched from a barge in the middle of the lake and from our boat we are able to get great view! My favorite part is hearing the echo off the surrounding mountains, and seeing the reflection off the water. God bless America!!