Fourth of July

The morning of the actual 4th of July, our friends (the DeMills) invited us to join them at the Hilliard city parade.  It was a great parade- not small and dinky, but not overwhelmingly long and boring.  They also have kids that match up age-wise with the Rasmussen's kids, so they all had fun.  They all played a game of tag and then the parade started.  They collected candy like it was Halloween, too!  After the parade, we came home for naps and then went back to the DeMill's for a BBQ, sparklers, poppers, games, etc.  Because we were out so late the night before, the kids had all pretty lost it by the time we got home and so put them all straight to bed and called it good with the fireworks we saw people do on our drive home. (Also, Lucy somehow got a random cut on her nose which is why it looks dark in these pictures).

Red, White, & Boom

Columbus does a big firework show every year called Red, White, and Boom.  They actually do it on the 3rd of July for a couple of reasons- so that everyone can stay out late (get drunk) and have the next day off to recover, and also so that it doesn't interfere with city fireworks.  It gave us something fun to do on the 3rd, so we didn't mind.  We heard it is crazy downtown trying to get out after fireworks, so we went downtown earlier and went to the kids area with inflatable stuff and free food and drinks, and then we drove out of downtown and watched the fireworks from a distance and ate lots of treats in the back of our van.

More fun things with the Rasmussens

The kids played in the crazy down pouring rain one afternoon...

We went swimming...

We watched fun things on the ipad (Lucy finally started to warm up to them a teeny bit)...

We played at a big, indoor play place on a rainy day (there's a gated small part for little kids, and then the huge, tall part for older kids)...

 I now present you with the two best crazy faces Lucy has ever made.  :)

 Jackson and Bennett were so excited, they did dances when they got to the bottom of the big slides (not really- we just got some funny action shots of them).

We painted, made up fun games, and ate lots of snacks...

We played with glow sticks and tested them out in all the dark rooms of the house...

Michelle does gel nails and has all the professional equipment and gave us mani/pedi's that are still going strong over a week later!  She also taught me how to make her version of chocolate chip cookies, which happen to break every rule about baking cookies but they are surprisingly awesome

Ryan read books to the kids....