July 4th fun

Our Fourth of July plans changed at the last minute....we had hoped to go to Grandmama and Granddaddy Bowers' house, but it was postponed to a later weekend. We're not normally spontaneous, but we didn't want to sit around the house on a three-day, holiday weekend by ourselves. (FYI - Daddy was on call with work on Friday and Sunday, so we couldn't go far unless he had immediate access to a computer) So, Mommy called a couple of friends, whom we had been hoping to visit with anyway, to see if they could come over for a last-minute cook-out, or we could "crash" whatever they were already doing. Our friends, the Harper's (see photo later in this post), told us about a local festival and fireworks show on Friday night and then a picnic at Daddy's home church, Maranatha Baptist Church in Lilburn, on Saturday. In the end, it was an awesome weekend!


Friday night:

We walked around the Snellville festival until the fireworks started. Aubrey couldn't contain her excitement once the fireworks began.

Aubrey is so overwhelmed with joy at the fireworks that she's lovin' on Addison saying, "Awww, Addison. Look!"

Even though the fireworks were over some trees, the girls still had a very good view but without the loud noise. Surprisingly, it held Addison's attention.

Saturday morning:

We went to our first parade where we live in Loganville. Aubrey was thrilled to have a flag to wave. BTW, we discovered that the little girl standing beside her is named, "Addison."

Of course there were military folks represented at the 4th of July parade.

You know you live in a small, southern town when - - amidst the politicians, beauty queens, and public servants - - there is a vintage tractor club as part of the parade.....

....and horse trainers. (Note: I just found out that there are more horses in the county we live in than any other county in GA.) The most entertaining part of the parade was watching groups on foot dodge the horse poop. The crowd gasped and giggled as folks barely missed the poop. The crowd roared with, "Eeww!" when a firetruck splattered a large pile of it. Oh, what fun!

Addison was more interested in Daddy's sunglasses.

Saturday afternoon:

The Harper family invited us to join them at Maranatha Baptist Church's annual picnic. Both Lee Harper and Jeff went to Maranatha when they were younger. so it was nice for Jeff to return to his home church to see everyone. (Lee was also a groomsman in our wedding.) Thanks again to the Harpers for inviting us - - we had a wonderful time! Photo above: Mary Leigh Harper is cooing and laughing with Addison.
Photo above L-R: Mary Leigh Harper, Addison, Rosemary Harper, and Emma Harper.
While we were there, we saw the Campbells (who married us at Stone Mountain) and the Hyatts. (Danny Hyatt was Jeff's best man at our wedding.) Photo above L-R: Julie Hyatt, Danny Hyatt, Jesse Hyatt, and Bobby Campbell.

Danny Hyatt was not able to attend our annual family cook-out that we had in May (see post dated June 24th), so he wanted to spend most of his time with our new baby girl.

Aubrey mostly played in the bounce house at the picnic. At one point, it was just Aubrey and another boy, Dylan (I think that was his name), in the bounce house. I then saw a side of Aubrey I had never seen before.....

....she did whatever he did - - when he sat down, she sat beside him;

then, she tried to hold his hand;

they found a bug together;

and Aubrey let the bug crawl all over her hand. We, especially Daddy, aren't ready for Aubrey to start taking an interest in little boys.

Saturday night:

Since we went to the Snellville fireworks display on Friday night, we played with sparklers at home on Saturday night. This was Aubrey's first time to hold a sparkler.

Mommy held one for Addison, too.

Sunday afternoon:

We enjoyed our own cook-out with barbecued ribs, corn on the cob, baked beans, steamed asparagus, and watermelon for dessert.

We had a wonderful holiday weekend, although most of it was not planned until the last minute. I guess this is a lesson to us that doing something spontaneously can be as good or even better than what we had hoped for in the first place.