4th of July

I always forget how much fun the 4th of July is. It usually creeps up on us before we even think about making any plans. Honestly though, that is when we seem to have the most fun.  The one thing we knew we were going to do was watch the Gahanna 4th of July parade that morning.  The parade is something we try to never miss but this year's was extra special because Ethan was going to be in it!  Ethan's Cub Scout troop enters a float in the parade every year but this was Ethan's first time participating.  He was excited and so was I.

                                     

The downside of being in the parade is you have to be there waaaaaaaay before the parade starts. The upside to being there so early is that I got us a great spot. The Gahanna parade is a small town thing but it sure does bring out a lot of people so it was nice that I got us a great spot and Joe could show up with Eli closer to the start time and we didn't have to worry about not being able to see everything or dealing with Eli having a meltdown which would have been inevitable had we made him sit there for an hour before it even started.  The weather wasn't blistering hot (like it was last year), Eli sat nicely and our troop's float won 2nd place!!

Later that afternoon, we took the kids to a festival to watch the fireworks. Of course Eli found the fire trucks and crawled right up into the seat.

Gotta love glow sticks!!  They kept the kids busy while we waited for the sun to set and the show to start.

2014 marks the first year Eli got to see fireworks and after the first few minutes, he fell in love with them proudly exclaiming "boom, boom" at the top of his lungs.  It was such a fun day!