4th of July Weekend

We started off going to see Toy Story 3 in 3D. We thought it was hilarious... the kids liked it too. ;) Here they are with their 3D glasses on. Jace kept looking at me and giggling that "it looks like it's coming right at us!" We have been waiting to go see this all together for quite awhile. It lived up to the expectations.

Later Saturday night we had a barbecue with friends. They moved into their new house a few months ago and the backyard is a kids paradise with a giant play place, and trampoline. The kids had a blast romping around the backyard while we adults played "bang"... the card game of course. They all 'banged' me good until I died. I guess I wasn't a very good deputy but since I was the first one out I took some pictures - surprising, right?

The kids gathering around Gen for a cupcake. Poor Brooke looked like the little piggy that just couldn't quite squeeze in to get some food. She kept moving around the circle trying to get close but just got butted out by the boys...don't worry. She finally got one. I feel bad for her sometimes because there aren't many girls for her to play with here and the boys are kind of mean to her. As soon as we arrived Jace and Brooke ran over to play and the boys started chanting "attack the little girl." For some reason she still loves all of them and they fight over which one of them she wants to marry. Kids are so funny!

Pretty sure I caught everyone off guard here, except for Craig who is scowling at me. He usually gives me this look when I'm taking pictures.

Finally - a smile.

After dinner, a water balloon fight, dessert and games we headed to the front yard to do some fireworks. Craig went a little crazy and bought a whole bunch of the BIG fireworks since nothing here is illegal. It was lots of fun!




On Sunday night we thought it might be fun to just sit out on our back porch and watch if anyone else was doing fireworks. This is our first year for the 4th up here in Washington. We were SHOCKED!! It got SO crazy we finally decided around 10pm to walk up to the park up the hill behind our house. It's a fun little park that overlooks all of Washougal, Camas, and across the Colombia River into Troutdale, and Portland, OR. It was AMAZING!! I've never seen fireworks like that before in my life. Since nothing is illegal EVERYONE had awesome, huge fireworks. Our neighborhood sounded like we had been dropped into a war zone. It was beautiful. We could see several city firework shows going along with everyone else from our neighbors up close to all the way across the river into Oregon. Jace went crazy running all over the place and screaming with excitement. Brooke was just in awe - she was pretty tired since we had woken her up. She did say "dis is SO cool." It took us a while to get to sleep since the explosions went on until the fee hours of the morning. Washington definitely knows how to celebrate the 4th!



Here is Craig and Jace sitting on our back deck watching fireworks. We also saw a frightened raccoon trotting across our backyard fence and into our green house...I'm sure scared from all the noise.




Finally, Craig had Monday off too so we headed to none other than CANNON BEACH. The beach is Brooke's favorite place on the whole earth - I think it might be mine too. The kids had a blast playing in the ocean and sand. It's sure beautiful there!











Jace was throwing sand so we put him in 'timeout'. lol :)

I loved this picture! My little beach babe. I had fun playing with the exposure . .just on the windows program - can't wait to get photoshop. We had an awesome 4th of July weekend. Hope you enjoyed yours too.