KISS-ing off the 4th of July

I have to tell you, I'm sad to see the holiday weekend come to a close. It was a really great weekend. Awesome weather, great fun with the family. My only complaint was my work schedule. While the 4th was not one of my holidays I had to work, it was my weekend to work. This meant instead of working my normal Friday and Saturday night, I had to work Thursday night, then Saturday night. Kind of screwed everything up for me and I didn't get to do as much with Adam and the kids as I wanted to. It would have been different if I worked say 1st or 2nd shift but one of the great gifts that comes with working 3rd shift is not only do you have to work, at some point you have to sleep during abnormal hours. So instead of playing at the pool with the fam, I was inside sleeping. Boo!

Adam came home Thursday night and we all went out to dinner before I came home and slept for a whole hour before work. Dinner was nice and you could really tell the kids had been missing Adam and just wanted a big heaping scoop of daddy-time. Adam decided not to work with our brother-in-law over the weekend so he could get in some quality time with the kids.

Friday morning we went to the parade. My favorite part about this picture? My sunglasses. I wore these the ENTIRE DAY on the 4th and never ever saw anyone else with glasses like them. I've had these things sitting on our baker's rack for over a month just WAITING to wear them. Pretty sure they're going to be a part of my ensemble every Memorial Day, Labor Day, Flag Day, Veterans Day and every other holiday that ends in "Day". Yep, I loved them that much. My least favorite part of this picture? Blake and I both have our eyes closed! What's with that??

The parade was fun. Blakey was LOVIN' the antique cars. He waved at everyone. Adam bought the kids two small bottles of bubbles to use before the parade got started. Here you can see how much fun they're having with their bubbles.

And here you can see how really mad they are when Adam made them sit down and then took said bubbles away from them because they were spilling them all over the place. OK, Emily's the only one here that looks really bummed, Blake just looks like a maniac, as usual.

I came home and slept for a few hours while Adam and the kids headed off to the pool. I got up around 5 and started getting ready to head to our town's 4th street fest and the fireworks that night. I got the kid's chairs off the deck and Blake insisted on carrying his around the house. While I was in the kitchen packing up the cooler, Blake brought his chair in the kitchen and sat it down right behind me.

"Mama, I'm just going to sit here and take a little rest, ok?"

"Whatever, buddy."

I gathered up a few more things around the house and as I headed back into the kitchen there sat my exhausted little buddy, fast asleep in his chair, snap-jerking the whole time. I got Emily from the living room and we stood there and giggled at him and then I took these pics.

Poor little peanut was so tired from all the excitement of the day and then the few hours of swimming. We let him sleep and woke him up just as we were ready to head out the door.

We got over to the fest and picked out a spot to watch the fireworks. We set up our chairs then headed over to the fest to get some food. We had yummy burgers, steak sandwiches and butterfly pork chops sandwiches. Both ends of the street had stages set up for bands. As we walked and got our food there was a country cover band just finishing up near the end of the street we were on. Not sure what was going on on the other stage. After we got our food and took our seats in the field a rock cover band took their place. They were decent and the kids enjoyed dancing around to the music. Blake entertained the families around us with his double-jointed hip action. At one point Adam took Blake to the bathroom and while they were gone the band played "Rock and Roll All Nite". When it started up Emily said, "OH! I like this song!" She then sang along during the chorus. It was pretty funny.

My sister, who had been at a family event at my aunt's house then joined us around 7:30 or so and Adam and the kids burned some sparklers and smoke bombs. Here's a lovely picture of Adam holding one of the smoke bombs that seriously went on and on for about 2 minutes straight.

While the rock cover band finished up a KISS cover band started up on the other stage. They're King's KISS. Adam was kind enough to head over there and snap some pictures for me.

Eventually a few parachuters flew in and before we knew it it was dark enough for the fireworks. I was excited to use the "fireworks" setting on my camera and snapped a few pictures of Adam and his sparklers. Then some of the fireworks.

The kids passed out on the way home and my sister, Adam and I ordered a pizza. Adam went to bed around midnight and my sister and I stayed up until around 1am talking. She left and I went to bed and passed out.

Saturday my sister came over and we all went out to lunch then to see WALL-E. We all really liked it even though Blakey fell asleep half-way through. I even made a killer comeback during a game of air hockey against my sister before the movie but still lost in the end. Oh well.

So this upcoming week Adam will head back out of town to work and my sister's on vacation so she's watching the kids for me for a few days so I don't have to pay a sitter. That means I'll be living the single girl in the city lifestyle! It will be so weird. I haven't been home alone for so many days since just before Adam and I got married and he was sent out of town to work for a week. I'm sort of looking forward to it and I'm sort of not. I think the silence is going to kill me. I'm pretty sure I'll have a tv, radio, something on 24/7. I won't miss hollering at Blake every 10 minutes, though. Maybe I'll even be able to get caught up on my soaps and all the other tv shows I love to watch but haven't got to because I've been too busy with the kids. I've had three movies from Blockbuster.com since forever, I might even get a chance to watch one or two of those too. I can hope, anyway...