Happy 4th of July... "we're free!"

We spent the 4th of July weekend up at gma & gpa's house this year. Luckily, Jon had the weekend off, so we were able to enjoy the entire weekend together (even after Jon missed his train on Thursday morning because he fell asleep after taking a post-call snooze!). I was insistent that we have some serious 4th-of-July-fun complete with a BBQ, outdoor fun, and fireworks. I really wanted Noah to have a little taste of suburb living on a holiday like this. We had a great time. We had prepped Noah the week before by having our FHE lesson about the 4th of July and he totally remembered what we learned. As soon as he saw all of the flags that day... he shouted, "we're free!"

We were able to meet up with the Brien's at their country getaway house in Garrison and do some swimming and t-shirt decorating. Noah had a great time with the boys and Jon and Curtis had some quality bonding time (heh-heh). Then on Friday, we had a lovely BBQ with my mom's neighbors and Noah took a nice 3 hour nap so he was all prepped for the fireworks. We went to a little town near where I grew up called, Cornwall, and watched a local firework show. I went to this show every year when I was growing up and this was the first time that I really realized how "small-town" this place actually was. I seriously felt like I was on Dawson's Creek or something like that. It was a nice nostalgic day for me and it was fun to spend time with our family and friends. I wasn't sure how Noah would do with the fireworks... it's always tricky to predict these things, but I really wanted to go, so we did. He really liked them at first, when they were just being tested out and they were only going off one at a time. But as soon as the show actually started and several went off at one time, he completely FREAKED out... we're talking screaming, crying, and kicking his feet to leave. Jon was finally able to get him calmed down by naming the colors of the fireworks as they went off. He still refused to look and spent the whole time with his hood on and under a blanket, but we were able to sit back in our seats until it was over without bailing out early. Surprisingly, he slept fine that night and talked about it the next day like he had the time of his life... whew! hopefully he's not scarred for life! Then on Saturday we went to a local playground and took Noah on his first mini-golf trip. We had the whole place to ourselves, so we just let Noah wander around on the course while we played. For some reason I am seriously competitive when it comes to mini-golf and Jon beat me by one lousy point... grrr! I still say it wasn't fair because we kept taking turns trying to make sure Noah didn't fall into the water features!

Anyway, we had a great weekend and it was especially nice to put a baby pool in gma's backyard and let Noah splash away without having to pack up everything and trek out in the hot city just to cool off. And I must report that Noah's love affair with gma's car continued to the point where he would go straight to the window every morning and check to see if it was okay and then go out to give it a hug. It was kind of traumatizing for Noah to wave good-bye to the car after my dad dropped us off on Tuesday morning, but he finally recovered (later that afternoon, he saw a car that is identical to gma's and that was a little sad... it took him a minute to figure out that it wasn't the same car and his eyes welled up with tears when it finally hit him, so now we try to avoid all green mini-vans that are parked on our street!)

Happy b-day, USA!

hope you enjoyed your weekend too...

cooling off with dad and the Brien boys

he LOVED jumping off the trampoline into the pool

(he kept calling it a "jack-o-lantern" for some reason, though.)

burrito baby

forever playing in mud

awaiting the dreaded fireworks

traumatized

hole in one!

making a wish

not ready to go

in love