24th of July... Pioneer Day

So... I just realized I never blogged this. Better late than never I suppose. Mostly it's just a TON of pics. That was half of our fun that night I think, playing with the cameras. So smile and endure the pics... or don't. Whatever :)
My neighbor Sarah brought over her slip and slide while we waited for the ice cream to be done and dark to come...
Sarah's daughter went down in her clothes .

West took a break from the heat and went down in his clothes too.

Playing with the smoke bombs. I really wish we'd had a pool or bucket of water. It's fun to drop these in water and watch them make colored bubbles. But we didn't have that so we just let the kids run around with them. After smoke bombs we moved our attention to pops, side walk chalk, and lots of goofy pics.

I got to take Sam out and help him throw pops. He's so dang cute!

After that he was in love with them, letting out big "OHHHHHH"s after every time he popped one. Poor Mike had Sean throwing them at him from behind and Sam throwing them at him from in front. Finally it started getting dark! Once the ice cream was done they didn't want to wait for cones or bowl. The strawberry ice cream was great. The vanilla... never did set up and we couldn't figure out why. Until finally at the end of the night when it was all said and done West opens it and tastes it. "Salty." We were then informed that impatient Sean was tinkering with it and tipped it over. That would explain where all the water came from on my floor. We couldn't understand how so much water was getting out of the ice cream maker. So in the process of Sean not being able to wait for the ice cream, he made it so too much salt got into it, and it never set up. Ironic. The stinker.West became Sam's new best friend (but I was the one who showed him pops! :( ha ha).OK, these things, and I don't even know what they're called, are my new favorite thing! They're basically extremely awesome adult sparklers.

If you ask me, it was the perfect night. I think next year I'll find a barbecue and do that with it. But as it was, I couldn't have asked for a better 24th. Love my family and friends for making it great for me! (And putting up with me throwing flowers up and over them ha ha ha).

As we were cleaning up Jessica found this giant dragonfly going crazy around my front door. It was gorgeous, and had it's legs stuck together somehow. She decided to save it! But upon discovering she couldn't unstick it's legs, she decided to drown it in my bathroom sink instead. Makes sense, if you can't save it, slowly drown it LOL. Flushing it down the toilet probably would have been a lot faster.