Friendship,  Fun Things,  Holidays,  Joy,  Marriage Confessions,  Suburbia

Fun on the Fourth

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For the fourth of July this year, we invited a few friends over for a laid back day out in our backyard.  We swam, ate burgers, and drank plenty of lemonade… and beer.  No judgies.

We also broke out the croquet set. Chris and I bought this really nice set for something crazy like $10 on clearance at Target a couple years ago. Without a doubt, this is the yard game that always gets the more involvement. If you’ve never played before, you should try. It’s like putt putt and pool all rolled into your backyard.

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(Please excuse the backyard. It looks like a lumber yard from where Chris tore down the old deck and is still working on the new one…)

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We invited Bean’s BFF’s family over, and I thought his head was going to explode. He hadn’t seen her for a couple weeks since I pull him out of school for the summers, so he was so excited to see her again. Gracie loves Elle, too. She just follows them around whenever they all get together. It is super cute to see the three of them playing together.

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After we ate dinner around 6:00, a huge thunderstorm came up, so we all went inside and ate dessert while we waited for the rain to stop. When the thunder and lightning finally let up, we went out to the garage and opened the garage door. We set our chairs up in the garage and watched while the kids played with the dads out in the rain with sparklers.

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After the rain stopped, we pulled chairs out onto the driveway and played with some little fireworks that we’d bought that morning. I didn’t get any pictures of this because I was busy trying to keep my children alive. Chris insisted he didn’t need to get further away from the crowd before he lit things on fire. I disagreed. Ergo, no pictures were taken.

Last year, Chris and I discovered that our neighborhood was THE PLACE to be on the 4th of July. There are a couple houses right down the street from us who all throw in together and buy probably close to $1,000 worth of fireworks every year. They put on a show that rivals Universal and Disney, I promise you. People come from all over to park their cars along our street to watch, and we have prime real estate right in our very own driveway. It was one of many things I love about our neighborhood. This year, they got the show started much later than normal, so we just sat in our driveway and continued to eat, drink and be merry while the kids rode bikes and played with sidewalk chalk. By the time the show started around 9:00, the kids were BEGGING to go to bed!

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I never really enjoyed the 4th of July before I had kids. It just wasn’t one of those holidays that caught my attention. But there is something about sharing it with kids that really makes it special to me. Hanging out with good friends, eating good food, and floating in the pool… well, those just sweetened an already sweet day for me.

6 Comments

  • Jamie

    Two things. Bean and Elle are the cutest little couple in the world. I can already see the picture slideshow at their wedding. Also, i love that one of the chairs you pull out into the driveway is a full on wing back! 🙂

  • Christy

    I’ve been wondering about this croquet thing. Is it because you like golf? Are you secretly British? I had a cheap croquet set that my family got at a garage sale growing up. Maybe I will get one when we have a bigger yard.

  • Jen @ Ginger Guide

    Are you and Chris really competitive? Mike and I are ridiculous. You should see us battle at Scrabble. It gets intense. 🙂

    Our neighborhood loves fireworks and they are so kind to shoot them off until 4am. I swear I used to like fireworks before them. Hopefully your neighbors are more respectful than that.

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