The Fouth of July---on the third.

The Fourth of July is always an important holiday for our family. Our neighborhood pool has games for young and old along with a cookout. We actually celebrated the fourth twice this year.

Dressed in red, white and blue and ready to go!

On July 3rd, a nearby town has a big celebration. We joined our friends, Battle, Shannon and their two girls, and Jason, Amy and their daughter, Olivia.

Jessie, from Toy Story, showed up.

This is what Elijah thought about Jessie.

It wasn't really Jessie that freaked him out, it was the blue faced genie,(from Aladin), that he was wary of.

All the kids in our group

Our family, minus our big four

The band, Liquid Pleasure played and then the NC symphony played.

Abbey danced...

and danced!

We had lots of time to just sit and relax and enjoy each other and our friends.

Then, of course, it was time for the highlight of the night-- the fireworks!

On the fourth, we started celebrating with a Kiddie Carnival of games at our pool. The highlight for Abbey was the slip and slide. For Elijah, the highlight was all the pretty pre-teen girl helpers, who were more than happy to carry him around to all the games.

For the pool games, Daniel tied in the belly-flop contest and John, Sr. won the 3 point shooting contest. Abbey and Elijah got even more candy during the "candy toss in the pool" game.

A major accomplishment was that Elijah let me let him go and he "swam" ie. kicked between me and John. He's been very reluctant for me to let him go in the water. He will put his head under, but wants me to hold him at all cost.  This was a great breakthrough for him!

Happy Fourth of July!