Idahome for the holidays

The day after Hadley's birthday, we set out on our summer vacation - back to Idaho to see friends and then up through Montana to Canada. The kids were pretty excited to be going back to Idaho Falls and staying with their old neighbor friends, Adam and Ella. Once we arrived, we got to relax on the patio, catch up, and grill up some dinner. How nice is it to dine al fresco in July? That's one thing we miss, for sure! They even had cupcakes for a mini-birthday celebration for H's birthday!

Then we headed over to some friends' cul-de-sac for a fireworks show. We know 4 families on this cul-de-sac, so it was fun to see them all again! It was, however, probably the coldest night of our vacation as a front blew in with wind and rain in the 50s. Gotta love Idaho! We had to borrow sweatshirts, and I was nervous about our packing job. I should have known, but it's really hard to pack sweatshirts when it's a heat index of 105 in Houston!!

The cold front made for a chilly morning parade and very pleasant afternoon. The parade was pretty much the same as always, but it did seem to last a while!

Owen claimed to be not interested in being close enough to collect candy, but we saw evidence to the contrary. Hadley had no issues in collecting a bunch of candy and junk in the front row with Ella!

After the parade, there were a few hours of down time before the annual games and food extravaganza began. Of course, the kids love the slip'n'slide!

As for the adults, yard games were much subdued from years' past. I think this may have been the only game played, as opposed to brackets and round robins in the past.

It's always fun to compare kids' groups from the parade/party every year. The group has grown, as well as the kids.

As dusk arrived, it was time to get our bikes out. We were able to borrow some bikes from a lovely family that was out of town, so that we could bike from our neighborhood to the big fireworks show downtown. We had quite a herd of bikers in our group, and the trip went pretty well.

Jake had set up his camper early the previous day with a primo spot to watch the show on the river. We hadn't been to the big event for several years (ever, I think, for me and Hadley!), but we figured we may as well go big this year, since it might be our last!

The fireworks did not disappoint! A full half hour, set to music, that filled the sky with 18,000 fireworks of all sorts of colors, sizes, sounds, and patterns. Enjoy the finale yourself! (The only detractor was the silhouette of the port-a-potty that you can see blotting out some fireworks at the bottom.) And we mercifully survived the trek back in the throng of 150,000+ pedestrians, cars, and bikers. Happy 4th!