Independence Day Weekend!

We had an absolute blast in Ohio over the 4th.  It began with the annual Bexley parade, where the kids all jockeyed for position to get candy and enjoy the floats.  Then it was over to Molly's house to watch fireworks at a nearby park.  We had a pre-fireworks display put on by Lyle, which was hilarious.  There were smoke bombs, screaming demons, sparklers, and the absolute highlight was when Lyle exploded an apple with a firecracker.  Awesome!  The next day, we headed to Laser's for some fishing with Greg, Michelle, Papa and Gigi.  Finnegan now knows how to cast by himself and caught quite a few fish.  The surprise was how into it Lourdes was.  She caught a ton of fish, and even wanted to pick out her own bait by the end!  Sabine takes after her mom.  She caught two fish and then lost interest.  After the cousins watched Rise of the Guardians at Molly's house, we went back to Michelle's house where we slept the whole weekend.  The kids and I shared a bed while Dad got an entire bed to himself.  I'm not bitter, but the picture below shows how little space I had in that bed!  Saturday was the pool party to celebrate Lucia and Izzy's birthdays, which was a ton of fun as usual.  That was followed by a delicious cookout at Monna's house.  The kids were loving Aunt Vicki who set up a face painting station on Monna's back porch.  She's got mad skills!  The weekend concluded with another cookout with Greg's family at Walton Lake.  I didn't manage to take any pictures, but we had a blast!  The kids played in the lake for close to two hours.  And they all went down a very fast slide into the lake too.  I was impressed!