4th Of July // 2019 Edition

When holidays fall in the middle of the week – it just makes everything feel so darn strange!
The 4th of July this year was last Thursday. Thankfully, Derrick’s job not only gave their employees Thursday off, but Friday off as well, so we had a glorious 4-day weekend! It was amazing! But I was so confused & had no idea what day it was all weekend long.

Our 4th of July plans were simple: go to the Lake & spend the extra 2 days there. However, after a minor change in plans, we ended up going to Kennywood Wednesday evening & not driving down to the Lake until Thursday morning.

We debated: should we plan to go see fireworks this year or not? We knew Braelynn would love it, we knew Leander really wouldn’t care – but we also knew that waiting up until it got dark was going to be devastating as far as our bedtime routines go. I won’t lie: we start bedtime at 6:30pm in this house & both Braelynn & Leander are asleep by a little after 7pm every single night (yes, it’s glorious). Since it’s summer (duh, the 4th of July), it does not get dark until after 9pm – which means most firework displays start between 9:30 & 10pm. In case you can’t math – that’s a full 3 hours passed the kids’ bedtimes.

Well, we decided to be rebels & go for it. We decided that the best way to keep the kids up was to do something fun – so instead of planning to go see the fireworks at Deep Creek Lake (which was where we were headed for Thursday, July 4th), we went to Kennywood on Wednesday evening, July 3rd. Kennywood was doing fireworks almost every single night in honor of Independence Day, so even though we were a day early, we were still right on time.

As always, we had a blast in the park! It wasn’t overly busy, so we enjoyed leisurely riding everything that we could!

Go ahead, you can laugh at us – I figured if I was going to post my crazy face photo, I could post Derrick’s crazy face too!

Omigosh – and then I took this photo. I just can’t get over this girl & how grown up she is!

So, even though we spend a lot of time at Kennywood (we have season passes after all), we are never there late enough to see a sunset. So, I was really really hoping for a pretty sunset & my patience was rewarded with a stunning cotton-candy sky!

I fully expected Leander to fall asleep by 8pm. I figured we would snuggle a bit & with being pushed around in his stroller, I assumed that he would fall right asleep. Man was I wrong! The kid stayed up the entire time we were out & was awake to watch his very first firework display! As much as I wanted to photograph the fireworks, I didn’t bring my tripod into the park, plus, we now have two children who wanted to be held during the show! So, I snapped a few images & then swapped my camera for a baby. It was totally worth it.

So, like I said, after our evening at Kennywood (the kids fell asleep before we even made it out of the parking lot, by the way), we woke up Thursday morning & drove down to the Lake House! My sister Ellen, her husband Jonathan, and their daughter Alethea, plus my cousin Zeb, his wife Emily, and their daughter Leah were already there! For the next 24 hours, it was just us 3 couples with the babies (plus my sister Amy) at the Lake House & we simply had the best time! It was so adorable to see all the little people together & to let them play while we “adults” all hung out (I say “adults”, because I still don’t quite feel like one of those – I’m just an “advanced kid”).

The weather was perfect & so beautiful! We’ve already spent a good amount of time at the Lake, but this past weekend was the best weather we’ve had all year!

May I call your attention to Leander’s rolls on rolls on rolls?
You’re welcome.

And of course, what would the 4th of July have been if we didn’t all dress our babies in red-white-and-blue and put them all together for a photo? I bet you wouldn’t believe that the following photo is not Photoshopped in some way, but I assure you – it is not! My sister Ellen took the photo, while I held the shade over the swing down low enough to block the weird light that was coming in, and Emily literally jumped up & down & clapped & sang to get everyone looking at the camera & smiling! I have the feeling this photo will be recreated many times in the years to come!

We don’t always do super fun things for the 4th of July, but when we do, I like to write about them:
4th of July in 2018 (looking back at last year’s 4th of July – wow!)
4th of July in 2016
4th of July in 2013