4th of July Weekend

I am slowly trying to get my blog caught up. I had a nice list of events that I needed to blog about and would cross each one off as I blogged it; however, I have now lost my wonderful list :-( (I'm so type A).  I do know that I had not blogged about our 4th of July weekend so here it goes...

Last year we had invited the family up to our home in Coralville and grilled and visited and then walked down to the fireworks. I had really enjoyed it so I decided to try to do it again here in Muscatine. Invited everyone but...didn't hear back from hardly anyone. We were pretty sure we were going to celebrate with just our small family but then JoDe posted on her facebook page that she was going to grill out any anyone who wanted could come so we jumped on that.

Mom and I worked on a couple of yummy treats to bring up and contribute to the meal. Mom made a really good pasta salad (I don't usually like pasta salad) and a really yummy "smores" dessert. I made fruit salad.

We all climbed into our Durango and headed to Bettendorf. We had only seen their house once before at like midnight in February so we were surprised to see what a nice yard they had. We set up our chairs outside and ate and visited. The little girls were so cute to watch. They "talked" with their heads real close together and ate their supper sitting next to eachother. The weather was wonderful and so was the company.

Afterwards we decided it was time to head down to the fireworks. We got a bit too late of a start and the riverfront was crowded with people and cars. Keeping 4 vehicles together was impossible so we all ended up parking at different spots and enjoyed the same show separately. It was a good show. Jaimee stayed awake and enjoyed the "pretty" fireworks.

Ryan took us on an adventure afterwards to beat the crowd out of the parking area. He drove up on a huge pile of dirt (some sort of construction area) and drove and drove around on the dirt. We finally saw an opening and out we went- cutting approximately 30+ minutes off our wait time. Crazy man!!

The next day we were tired and just chilled around the house. The parade was scheduled for 5pm and we were all anxiously awaiting to take Jaimee to the parade.

We got a call from Mark and he came over with his kids (my cousins) Holly and Zach. I hadn't seen Holly in who knows how many years- maybe 5+. We had a nice, short visit. We had to rush them out to get to the parade on time. Even Nick came along to watch Jaimee enjoy it.

As we drove there we reminised about how we used to live close enough to walk down. We joked that we should just park at our old house. As it turned out, we had to park 1 block away from our old house cause we got a late start headed down. It was horrible trying to find a spot to sit but we eventually found a spot just big enough for Jaimee to sit on the curb w/Ryan. The rest of us really couldn't see Jaimee but we did get little glimpses. She LOVED it. She danced to music, got to pet the horses, got lots of candy, water, and popsicles.

Later that evening we went to the riverfront and watched another fireworks show. The weather was once again wonderful. Jaimee stayed awake and liked them.