Our 4th of July Bash

Our 4th of July was a Par-TAY!!  Since Dallas had to work during the day, us girls decided to make the best of it and go all out.  In the morning I painted the girls' faces like I used to do in the good old days for the kids at the PTC parade.  

Raleigh had USA on one cheek and a firecracker on the other.

Kensington's star looked more like a starfish.  And she ended up peeling it off anyway.

Madeline had a flag on one cheek with red, white, and blue in it, and we think it looked like an actual flag for a different country.  

We went to Harbor Fest in Norfolk, Va, (about 10 minutes away), and here are some of the pictures:

This is Madeline with Carlee, our cute, cute new friend from Utah.  She is only here in Virginia for a few weeks, but we've had a fun time getting to know her.  She totally reminds me of my BFF Jenny!  The festival was on the harbor at the newly-renovated Towne Point Park in downtown Norfolk at the waterfront.  There were tons of boats in the marina and a few that we got to tour.

That big gray-looking building in the back is actually a gigantic Naval boat.  We didn't go inside, but there is one you can tour for free at the Nauticus Museum, which is right next to the park we went to.

What is this, a tug boat?  It reminds me of a cartoon.

This boat looked like a pirate ship.  While we were on it, the ladder holding it to the dock fell off somehow, and we started floating away.  I was hoping we could go for a little voyage, but unfortunately, the crew fixed the ladder.



Between boats, the girls decorated cupcakes to celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the Norfolk mermaid, which is basically the city symbol.  And it's OOOOGLY!  Just believe me.  Just not very Ariel-ish, which is what I would want to look like if I were a mermaid.

The girls were so nice to share their cupcakes with Choobs.  By this time we were all sweaty, sticky, and sunburned.

Awesome, huh?  I love beaches and boats.  Here is our favorite boat: the Cisne Branco.  It was a Brazilian Navy ship with an all-Portuguese crew.  I wish Dallas had been with us!  I tried speaking to them in Portuguese but didn't get very far.  It was fun.  I loved the contrast of the stark white, navy blue, Brazilian green, and wood grain.  It was very classy.  "Order and Progress!"

Raleigh and Madeline at the helm, steering.

We saw these guys getting ready for an "Anything that Floats Race," but by the time it started, we were too far away to see who was winning.  It looked pretty clever.

Our patriotic girl watching the boat race.

The boardwalk.

We came home in time to get a little R&R for the rest of the day.  The girls appropriately watched an American Girl movie, and we got ready to go to our work BBQ.  Here's Raleigh and Madeline spacing out watching the movie:

We were so excited to be able to spend time with Dallas RELAXING!!  (We haven't done very much of that this past year.)  Everyone met at a park where we enjoyed catered Quizno's, watched the boys compete in a giant tug-of-war (Dallas' team won both times-yeah!), dodged water balloons, and played in the grass while the dads played kickball.  We painted the kids' faces, watched lightning bugs, and played around with badminton racquets and balls.  

Probably the best part of the evening was racing home to catch the fireworks from our apartment building.  We counted several shows just on the drive home (since we left the park at 9:15 pm), and we made it just in time to see a GRAND show from the eleventh floor!  We crammed a bunch of work friends into the single guys' apartment and enjoyed the Spirit of America!  I must admit, I was more mesmerized by the girls' faces than by the fireworks - it was priceless!  They were so animated and talkative!  We counted seventeen other firework shows that we could see all along the oceanfront from the balcony window - it was AWESOME!  Then we had root beer floats, stayed up way too late, and I completely missed church the next day because of a killer migraine.  But HAPPY 4th of JULY!!