The 4th of July has long been one of my favorite holidays. I love the parade, the fireworks, hanging out with family. The only down side to the day is that it is none stop from sun up to way after dark!! This year started even earlier because we ran the firecracker 5K at 7am. Tom's family was in town and we ran together, well we ran the same race. Some of them ran together, a few of us were not fast enough to keep up with the others. It was funny to see the sibling rivalry. I told Tom that since I was not in running shape to beat Oliver and Alisha that he would have to do it for me this year. He pulled through. Good job honey!
This was my first race (unless you count track and field day in 5th grade). I must say I was a bit nervous. Mostly because I was afraid of coming in last or more realistically throwing up on the side of the road! I can at least say that I finished and only 10 minutes behind Tom. His time was just over 24 minutes and my time was just over 34. Not too bad for only running for 2 weeks.
After the race we meet my parents and our kids at the parade. Whit and Ryan were cute to watch. There was a float that had star wars characters, Ryan was not a fan of this float. He clung to Grandma until it was safely out of the way. Whitney looked at Ryan and said, "Chill out, it's only people in costumes". I had to laugh because just 2 years ago she was freaked out by them as well. We were at the beginning of the parade sitting on the curb so we ended up with a lot of candy. As we were sitting there it brought up a holiday question. Which is better Halloween or 4th of July. You may get more candy on Halloween (and typically better quality candy), but you have to do a lot less work for it on the 4th of July! Whitney's favorite floats were the princesses and the dancers.
We had a great time just taking it easy all afternoon and spending time with family. Ryan enjoyed jumping on Whitney and she enjoyed making him fall off.
We topped the night off with fireworks and watermelon at Great Grandma and Grandpa's. Well, Tom and I had watermelon. Whitney and Ryan were both asleep before the finale. I was impressed that both of them could sleep through the booming since we were very close to the fireworks! Apparently I don't need to be worried anymore about people making too much noise when they are asleep. It was a fun and exhausting day and now that we have recuperated we are ready for it all again next year!
