Happy Independence Day!

July 4th was a REALLY fun day for us. When it was all over all I wanted to do was do it all over again. I knew I wanted us to have a fun filled day since it was the first day Matt and I had off work together (except Sundays) for a month and a half and being a holiday, well, it meant that much more. The only thing we had planned the night before for the next day was our annual neighborhood breakfast. We have lived here 3 years and this is the first we were able to attend. Evidently they have been doing it for 9 years! It was really quite neat. They decorated the bowery at the church all festive-like. We sat behind it on the little hill there on blankets and watched as the scouts did a flag ceremony. We then stood in lines and silently passed the folded flag around. It was moving as we pondered what that meant to us.

After the ceremony they had a breakfast and we sat and visited. While visiting someone brought up that they would be going to the zoo later that day, so we decided that would be a really fun thing to do. Since it was Kate's nap time, it worked perfectly. We headed straight there from the breakfast for Kate's very first trip to the zoo.

Look how cute she is looking at the elephants!

Here we are in front of the tigers. They were chewing bones. It smelled so gross!

Daddy and Kate by the giraffes.

We were in front of the gorillas here, but all she was interested in were the leaves.

She is the same size as the babies!

We kept trying hats on her, but she would have nothing to do with them. She would rip them right off.

We destracted her just enough to get a picture with her in one.

Who is that?

Kisses!

When we were finishing up at the zoo my parents called and wanted to know if we were interested in going to see Cars 2 with the entire Reynolds family. I hesitated because I wasn't sure how Kate would be, but we didn't want to miss out on the fun so we decided to go.

When we left it was Katie's nap time again. We met my family at the theater. We were a little early so we sat on the grass outside. It was a little rainy so we got out the umbrella and played.

I'm glad we went to the movie, but let me tell you that a movie with an eight month old is not easy! She was bouncing off the walls and just wanted to go and go. There were lots of children there so I didn't feel too bad about being noisy.

After the movie we headed over to my parents' house for a barbeque. Katie absolutely loves watermelon. She had it dripping off her everywhere. During the barbeque the kids got their swimsuits on and we put the sprinklers on and filled up the inflatable kiddie pool. I stuck Kate's feet in and she was okay until the little three-year-olds splashed her. She didn't think that was too fun. She was drenched! We had to change her out of her wet clothes and put her in a sweatshirt.

Watermelon is the best!

Dancin' time

Little cutie

When we got home we put her right to bed, then put ourselves to bed. Such a fun, but exhausting day. Funnest 4th of July I've had in years! I love spending time with my cute little family.