Our 4th

I got my pictures!!!! Yeah! But before I put them up, I have some exciting news to tell you all. Elijah learned how to ride his bike today with no training wheels!!!!!!! We are all excited here. That boy is dangerous though. He has the hardest time remembering how to brake. *shaking head* I've done a few practices with him and he will do good, but then he goes off and forgets to use them. *sigh* He is always running into something. Well, today Jacob had them all help clean up the house and then took them out to walk/ride bikes. Elijah was up and off, excitedly riding without the training wheels. He got going so well that he ran right into his sister Alana. No major damage thankfully. Jacob said for the rest of the walk, Alana was hiding behind Jacob (he was pushing the double stroller with the younger two kids in it) saying "Don't let Elijah run into me. Don't let Elijah run into me. etc" When Elijah would get close she would yell at him "DON'T RUN INTO ME!!!!" Poor girl was mortified, but they all made it back in one piece. My Aunt Cathy or was it my Uncle?, found a set of knee and elbow pads for Elijah to use while trying to learn to ride. They worked real well. Ok, on to the pictures. :)



First off we went to the parade. Jacob had to take some pictures of the paper so we all went. It was shorter than what I expected, but still fun.

Here is a car all done up for the 4th.

A man riding a unicycle. You don't see that everyday.

I'm not sure what this clown is riding, but I thought it was a fun picture.

After the parade, Jacob had to cover the unveiling of this memorial. One of the people on the West Shore made it. So it was a big thing.

From there we went to the West Shore to Somers. A family who lives on the lake invited us to spend the 4th with them. We weren't going to pass up that oppritunity! They had all kinds of fun things to play in the water with. The kids had a BLAST.

Here Elijah and Alana are being pulled in a raft by the boat.

Pulling up to the dock after the fun ride.

Here is Elijah and Alana just having fun on one of the rafts tied to the dock so it wouldn't float away.

The family even had a Sea Doo!!! Jacob took all the kids for a ride on it except for Josiah, I guess he was too scared of it.

Here is Elijah on it.

Alana

And Moriah. Her ride consisted of a total of maybe 3 min. She was not too happy after being on it for the first min.

All the kids had their turn of falling into the lake. haa haa, it was great. Elijah didn't really fall, he jumped off the dock once he had the lifevest on and then didn't know how to swim back to the dock. lol It scared him enough that he didn't do that again. Alana fell in the most times. I think it was like 3 or4 times. *Shaking head* She just never did master the balance thing, but she did have the lifevest on all those times so all was well. Josiah, on the other hand, had the balance thing down so well that I thought he was NEVER going to fall in. Finally, toward evening, he fell in. I was in the house with Moriah in the bathroom, so I missed it. Bummer, but I could tell by the cry that it had finally happened. Moriah was the only one that could have been scary. I was up by the food, feeding her. I turned to get something and she was gone. Jacob yells at me that she is heading toward the lake where Jacob had taken the two older kids out on a raft. She had wanted to go with them something terrible, but we hadn't found a lifevest that fit her yet, so she had to wait. Anyway, I started to run after her as fast as this pregnant body could run. She made it to the lake before me and was still going full force toward her dad, when she tripped on the rocks and fell over. Right at that time I made it too her and swooped her up out of the lake before she had a chance to take a breath. Thankfully that incident curbed her desire to be out on the lake for quite a while. We did find a Jacket for her and made her go out on the paddle boat with Jacob and I and Josiah. Moriah did relax and enjoyed the ride. Josiah relaxed so much that he fell asleep. :)

After everyone was out of the lake for the day, we roasted hotdogs and made smores. Mmmmm. Then someone got out the sparklers for the kids. They had alot of fun with those. Here is a picture of the kids with the sparklers.

There was a couple of older girls there that just fell in love with Alana. They started treating Alana like a baby, holding her and all. At one point I know that they were even fighting over who was going to hold her. Alana enjoyed every minute of it, I assure you. As the grown ups were getting ready to set off some fireworks, one of the girls brought out a cot for her and Alana to rest on and watch the fireworks.

Last but not lest, here is a picture of one of the fireworks we saw. We had to go an down to Lakeside for the fireworks there. (Jacob had to take pics for the newspaper there.) I thought this one turned out pretty good.

Ok, so there you have it. Our fourth of July. It was a wonderful and very fun day. Hope you enjoyed the pictures.