Fireworks and Waterbugs!

WOW! We hope you had a wonderful, relaxing Fourth of July!! We celebrated and celebrated and celebrated...and crashed HARD last night! Tuesday night we went to the fireworks show at Navy Lake in Millington. It was muggy...crowded...loud, but very pretty...and a disaster to get out of! The traffic 'controllers' on our end of the parking area were pitiful. It took us an hour and ten minutes to get off the base...ridiculous!! The kids were troopers even though we were in the car for so long...and they ate PLENTY of Goldfish...the evidence was THICK in my van! Oh well! Here are a few pictures from that night:

Wednesday we were invited to two swimming celebrations. We loaded up the floaties and kids and headed out to swim with Kevin and Debbie at their vacationing friend's pool. We had a great time! Ella has been quite scared of big pools so far this year...screaming in a very terrified manor when we even MENTION letting her go. She stayed in a shallow play area or on the steps...until we added a swim ring with the water wings she was already wearing...then she let go and discovered a new way to swim. That Evan...he's amazing! At first he was so tickled in the pool that he couldn't keep his mouth closed - he swallowed half the pool! When he finally figured out that he'd have more fun if he calmed down and just swam, then he really let loose. He refused to hold onto anything. He had on the water wings and was as free as a bird, er, fish. Mr. Bravery took off for the diving board...and to everyone's shock and amazement, jumped off...over and over again!! He had a BLAST!! That's our fearless one, no doubt. Check out these pictures:

As you can tell...Ella was not interested in jumping off the diving board...this was one of the few times she stood up there but would hop right back down. We hope she'll get a little of Evan's bravery soon.
Wednesday night we went to another pool party and Donald got in with both the kids. By this time Evan was toast...worn slap out from swimming earlier. He wasn't much fun to deal with...now Ella, that girl told her Daddy to let her go - off she went! Swimming by herself in just water wings! Donald and I were SO proud of her! She did a wonderful job and had a great time. We are very much looking forward to our next family swim outing.