Celebrating the 4th

I've always loved the 4th of July. Some of it I'm sure stems back to lazy summer days spent at Grandpa's house to celebrate his birthday. There would be more food than "you can shake a stick at", a family volleyball tournament, swimming in the pool, and trips to the "crik" ~ known down south as creek ~ with my cousins. We always would go to one of the bigger towns to see fireworks and then there were the fireflies...

This year we didn't go to Ohio to celebrate, but it was so very special because it was Kylie's first as an American citizen. We got to celebrate three times starting on Saturday night. I'm not sure I got the point across in the previous post how hard it rained, but I think this next picture gives a better idea.
Teniah, Aunt Traci, little Anna, Uncle Adam, Kylie and I (and Ian ~ he's taking the picture though) tried to stay a little dry while watching the fireworks. Kylie loved the evening but was a bit worn out after playing with the other girls from our Sunday School class, getting rained on, and watching fireworks. She tried to act like she wasn't tired in the car on the way home, but her daddy and I knew better!

Here she is at minute 1 in the car...
and here she is at minute 2! (No, I'm not exaggerating at how quickly she zonked out!)


Tuesday while shopping I couldn't resist the impulse buy (it was on sale for $4) and got Kylie a little "All American Girl" dress. Sure, I know she wasn't born here, but while we plan to celebrate her Chinese heritage, she is a full fledged American citizen now! We went to a local park to watch fireworks for the second time this year (this time it didn't rain!)

"We want fireworks, we want fireworks!!"

"Ahh, sitting in Mommy's lap where I can reach Daddy,I've got a supply of puffs, and there are colorful explosions in the sky. Does it get any better?"

Then yesterday Sarah's family was visiting her grandparents in Waynesville. Hey, that's only 3 hours away instead of the unknown number of hours between here and Minnesota, so we went up to the mountains for the day to visit. We met them downtown and wandered through several shops (my favorite, the Mast General Store of course was one of them), ate lunch and then headed to Sarah's grandparents home for some downtime and a cookout.

** You will note that Kylie is wearing two different shirts in the pictures. She started in the blue one, Sarah's family gave her the red one, we spilled on it and changed back into the blue one, when it dried we put the red one back on for pictures... You know, typical day in the life of a toddler! **

"Man I wish Grandma was here to buy me this chair! Mommy and Daddy say it is too expensive!" (A mere $142, not happening on our budget ~ but when she bats those eyes at her grandma...)

"If we smile for them they might put the cameras down and let us play!"

Rebecca with Kylie and Sarah ~ she was holding Kylie when Sarah noticed someone moving in on her territory!

"You take this one and I'll take that one..."

Ethan, Dave, Rebecca, Sarah, Kylie, Me, Ian and Grace ~ we got to meet Dave and Rebecca's older children this time! They are absolute sweeties!

"Girl, was that some good watermelon or what?"

We had a wonderful day! It was so fun to watch Kylie and Sarah together! I wouldn't go as far to say that they recognized each other, but they definitely had fun interacting! They passed toys, cups and flowers back and forth. They hugged many times and even gave one another several kisses. One funny thing though, you get two Asian girls together in a small town and as they sat side by side in their strollers several folks asked Rebecca and I, "are they twins?" Really now...

Oh, and I would be remiss if I didn't note that today is our 5 month anniversary of being a family! Happy "forever family day" anniversary to travel group 121!