4th of July

We decided to avoid the craziness that is McCall on the 4th of July & went home for a few days. Matt was dying to hike into a lake just outside of McCall. He would be gone overnight & I haven't quite braved up enough to be home along overnight with both kids yet. Two kids is a game changer. Why do they both always need you at the same time?! It's one thing to be outnumbered during the day, but all day and all night without being able to text the hubby to complain... yikes. I'll have to give myself a big pep talk before that happens.

So after sacrament meeting on Sunday, the kids & I packed up and drove to Nampa. As we pulled in to Nampa Matt called us to tell us that he reached a little bit of cell service at the top of a mountain. His hike was killer, but he & Kane were having a good time!

It always feel so good to be home, even though it was hotter than h*ll in the valley. We got to go swimming with cousins at my sister's neighborhood pool. Kess loved it & Manning didn't care to have his feet in the water, so I snuggled him & he fell asleep. Matt joined us the night of the 3rd. We drove to Middleton on the 4th for the parade. We got there early & saved our spots for the parade. It was hot.hot.hot. Thankfully my sister had a mini fan for Manning - he crashed out and slept through most of the parade. Kess was bright red from running around with her cousins. Our parade spot happened to be in the "Wet Zone" so we spent the last part of the parade back off the road. The kids still thought it was cool to see & we knew they would hate getting sprayed.

Kess' dress 

After the parade we stopped in to see some friends who are building a house. I totally miss the house we just built so it was fun to see the process again & I was only a tiny bit jealous ;)

We put the kids go down for a nap (quiet time for Kess) - we all relaxed & made desserts for our BBQ later. My younger brother is in Florida working for the summer & my older brother was at Disneyland with his wife & 3 girls. So it was just my grandparents, parents sister & I with our little families. Which is a huge difference from what I grew up with. As a kid I remember being SO excited to go to my mom's parent's house for the 4th. Tons of food, swimming & our very own... totally legal ;) ... firework show. I grew up with 20+ cousins - so we were all running around like crazy kids - hopped up on sugar and summer time. But, this 4th was quiet and relaxing. Honestly just what we needed. We all ate together, then let the kids have a go with the hose. The 3 grandkids ended up nakey & running around together until it was time for "fireworks"... none of our kids like loud noises so we let them throw some pop-its & we lit some smoke bombs which were a total hit.

We rounded up the kids around 9:00 & decided to head home. Once we got Manning and Kess down for the night, Matt & I ate junk food & played Ticket to Ride with my parent's. I won, just in case you were wondering! ;) We even watched fireworks for a few minutes from my parent's deck. By then we were beat. You know you're old when midnight is way too late.

We spent the next morning slowly packing up. Then we stopped at Matt's parent's house to say hi! We miss not being able to see our families as often as we used to, but we are lucky enough to not be too far away. We grabbed lunch at our favorite Chinese restaurant - ate way too much & drove to Matt's grandparent's house on our way out of town. We made it home round 5:30 & instantly had a vacation hangover. You know that feeling when you have too much to do & you're back in "real life mode" and you're not having any of it? Yep, that feeling.

Thank goodness for the shorty 2-day week before the weekend ;) I hope you all had a great 4th with your families! You deserve it!