4th of July!

We had a good fourth of July this year. I felt like it was our first 4th in Cleveland because last year Cameron worked all day and I just hung out at home trying to hideout from the heat.

We started out the day doing separate activities... Shay and I started the day with a 5 mile race in Bay Village... and we totally rocked I might add (:

This is us after the race. We didn't take a before picture, but I think you can tell by our faces how happy we are to be on the other side of the finish line! It was a fun race and we are definitely looking forward to our next (and longer) one!

After the race was over we booked it over to Lakewood to meet up with our families who were already enjoying breakfast and a parade. We got there in time for most of the parade so that was nice.

Here we are in front of the parade. Grant was a little zoned out because it was already past his naptime... little did he know we were going to make him stay up till midnight to watch fireworks, poor guy...

Grant on dad's shoulders

After the parade we went home to get Grant down for a nap. While we were there, I realized that I forgot my phone at Shay's house after the race. We told them that we would just drop by and pick it up as soon as Grant woke up from his nap.

Well we stopped to just grab the phone and go, but we made a big mistake and let Grant down to play in the grass and "watch" the Coil kids play on their slip n' slide. In about two seconds flat Grant had sprint-crawled to the slip n' slide and jumped right into the water with the older kids. He was immediately soaked from head to toe. We tried to get him out, but he just screamed and we figured that he was already wet so we might as well let him play for a while longer. We stripped him down to his diaper and threw his clothes in the dryer while he kept splashing and playing. He loved it and was not happy to leave when it was really time to go.

Here he is crawling up and down the slide with the kids.

He loved getting sprayed with the water.

Drying off a not-so-happy boy. He did not want to leave...

After we left the Coils, we decided to head to target and see if we could find a cheap little kiddie pool since Grant had so much fun in the water. We were surprised to find this little gem on sale and had to get it. It is perfect. It is specifically for babies and just fills up with water about 5 inches deep. It has lots of squirty things and animals to play with. I am excited to have something to do outside besides going on endlessly long walks this summer. By the time we got some lunch, and headed home it was pretty shady in our yard, so we didn't play in it for very long, but Grant still loved it.

Sitting on the whale.

He loved playing with all the water that was squirting up

We hadn't planned on going to fireworks or doing anything at night because Cameron was supposed to work an overtime shift, but around 7pm he got a call saying that they already had too many people for the night and they wouldn't need him to come in at all. Yay! So we decided to meet back up with everyone that was at the breakfast/parade that morning and go to the potluck/fireworks. It was a total zoo trying to get there and back(even though we only live about 3 miles from where the fireworks were at).

I forgot to get any good pictures from the evening, but here are a couple of the adults lighting and handing out tons of sparklers to the kids at the party. They loved it and it and Grant was enjoying watching all the cool lights.

Technically this is Grant's second fireworks show in his short 10 months of life. When he was just about a week old, our old neighborhood had a little community celebration and had a big fireworks show. We lived literally across the street from the park that they were lit off from and watched them from our big front room window. Cameron's mom was in town still and we both could not believe how long they went on, but also how loud and close they were. They literally shook the house and knocked off one of our wedding pictures off the wall and shattered the frame. It was crazy. Anyway, Grant has done well at both shows that he has been to. He slept right through the first one(although i'm still not sure how since they were SO loud). This show he wasn't scared, but wasn't really interested very much either. He would look up at them every now and then when there was a really bright or loud once, but mostly just crawled around on the grass. He did pay attention to the finale though. And I don't blame him. It was hands down the best finale I have ever seen. Good job Lakewood! It was a fun 4th and we were all glad that we were able to spend the whole day as a family!