Fourth of July

Nick and I came back from our anniversary weekend right before the Fourth of July holiday.  Nick took Monday and Tuesday off and we had a great deal of fun.  Monday we took the girls to Sioux Beach, our go to beach up by Bayfield, for dinner at the beach.  Per usual, we ran into people we know while we were there.

Then it was the Fourth of July.  We dragged ourselves to the Fourth of July parade and the entire time wondered why we had bothered.  The girls seemed to have a mixed reaction to the parade - enjoying the free candy and some of the floats but hating the floats that sprayed water and much of the noise. The parade was poorly timed by the time it got to us and there were some big gaps between all of the floats.  I can't remember how long the parade was, but I know it seemed like it was 182371923987 hours long.

Before the parade started, some people were passing out little plastic bags,
Greta turned hers into a sleeping bag for her doll.

Greta was a fan of all the tractors

A handful of the floats had people squirting water at people watching the parade, which we are not big fans of.  Especially because it is hardly ever hot enough to have that feel good.  I wasn't paying attention at one point and got just soaked.  At the end the fire truck comes along and any interested parties can run into the road to get sprayed by the truck.  Lilly was very worried they would spray her and forced Nick to take her half a block away.

That evening we went to our friends the Hofstedts for dinner.  I made an amazing, if I do say so myself, strawberry cheesecake pie.  It was fun seeing all the kids play together and having a few moments to talk with adults.  Greta also had her first exposure to a squirt gun and man alive did she think it was awesome!

Lilly is Moana obsessed.  She desperately wants a Heart of Te Fiti
necklace, so she made her own.  The half-circle isn't completely glued shut
and there is a green circle piece of paper inside.

She knew just what to do with the squirt gun!

On our way home, Lilly was begging to go see the fireworks.  We're not big fireworks people and they are late, so we said no.  The kid was still awake when they started that night.  Conveniently the fireworks are shot off basically at the end of our street, and even more conveniently, Lilly has a perfect view from her bedroom window.  So, the three of us watched the fireworks sitting on her bed and as soon as they were done, all of us went to sleep.