Happy 4th!

Happy 4th! Our family has been very busy over the last few days enjoying Independence Day and all of the celebrations! Junction City has a fest over the week of the 4th called Sundown Salute. We have spent a lot of time downtown watching shows and fireworks, listening to good music and riding a carnival ride or two.


Here is our "Little Sparkler" in the backyard on the Fourth. She loves waving her little flag, and had tons of fun waving it at the parade. In fact, I think she waved at everyone who walked by during the parade. She was exhausted at the end, and so was I! Nick had to work at the parade, so I took the kids by myself. The parade was huge and lasted a full hour and a half. By the end, we were very hot, sunburned and tired. I had no idea that is would last so long. The kids did have a lot of fun though. There were so many floats and trucks and motorcycles. I have never seen anything like it. There were even airplanes that flew overhead! Ben collected lots of candy and goodies. People in the parade also tossed out hot dogs, Popsicles, bottles of water and flags. It was quite the event!

On the evening of the 4th we decided to brave the carnival downtown. Ben was really excited to ride on the kiddie rides. Here he is in the front car of the kiddie roller coaster. He had a great time.

After the roller coaster, he chose to ride on the mini airplanes twice! We became very familiar with the man operating this ride. The first time Ben got on and then just before the ride started we had to pull him off because we could tell that he had to go to the bathroom really, really bad. After a quick trip to the restroom, we got back in line. Again, Ben jumped into the same orange and black plane. Soon after the ride started, he somehow managed to get his elbow stuck behind him. Ben was screaming and the man had to stop the ride to get him un-stuck. Meanwhile half of the kids on board started to get off because they thought the ride was over. We caused quite the commotion, but Ben really had a lot of fun. He even went on the plane ride again the next day.

On Saturday we headed back to Sundown Salute. We saw an Extreme Canines show and Wild about Monkeys. Ben laughed so hard at the crazy baboons. He also spent lots of time in the bouncy houses and on the one-man tug of war.

Finally before we left, we asked him if he wanted to get his face painted. To our surprise (shock actually), he said yes! Ben has never been a kid who was interested in that sort of thing. He has never had his face painted before, and until recently wouldn't even put on a temporary tattoo or even a band aid. He decided he wanted to be Batman. I'm not sure what we were thinking when we said yes. His Batman mask was a whole lot of black paint, and it was 92 degrees out. He thought it was great though, and I was happy that he tried something new.

We hope you all enjoyed your 4th of July Celebrations!