Independence Day 2014

For the past few years, we have had the privilege of getting to spend Independence Day celebrating with a lot of family.  Every year, my parents host a huge party in celebration of the holiday.  We get to hang out with tons of friends and family members, eat yummy food, and watch and participate in fun fireworks.

Here are some photos from our celebration this year.  First, the family photos:

And silly pictures always make me smile!

My sister, her family and mother-in-law and father-in-law

Of course, we did a silly photo with my mom and dad, us "kids", and our children.

And here are just some random photos from throughout the beautiful evening:

My sister and my niece, Lilly

our nephew, Brody

Our niece, Linnea, with her grandfather

Our niece, Kaylee

Our youngest niece, Natalie

Playing in the smoke

Waiting for the parachute fireworks.  They played a game to see who was going to get them.  Our family friend, Rob, and my sister,  Holly and her husband, bought a lot of fun parachutes.  There were night parachutes, parachutes with big army men attached, parachutes with little army men, there were humongous parachutes, and there were a couple that produced 50 mini parachutes after the tiny explosion.  The 50 mini parachutes was such a funny surprise.  We even had a couple of adult races to try to get the parachutes.  

Abbey got a parachute with a little army man.

Linnea was prepared for the loud sounds.

Watching for a parachute

Later, Luke found a great spot for the fireworks show--in the lap of my dad, his grandpa:

As it got darker, we had our usual fun with sparklers and our camera.  Here is Holly, spelling, "hello" with a sparkler.

We learned that the glow bracelets worked pretty well in spelling things as well.  They weren't quite as bright, but they still worked.  Drew took a turn and spelled his name with a glow bracelet:

He also spelled, "Love" with one:

I learned that I didn't have the talent to spell backwards and in cursive.  My normal handwriting isn't even legible to a lot of people, so I am not sure why I thought my backwards cursive with a sparkler would be.  I stuck to taking the pictures.  That is where I am most comfortable.