Fourth Festivities

The best part of the fourth was that we got to have some family time! That lately is few and far between. We started the morning at a flag raising and muffin pot luck church event. It was really good and patriotic. It was probably the nicest and prettiest July morning Kansas has ever seen. Cool, not humid, clear sky. It was perfect.

Cade loves Americana colored things. The night before the 4th  he set out red, while and blue clothes to wear including underwear :)

Then Cole worked a little bit and the kids and I did some packing. Then we had a BBQ at the institute building with the branch and hung out and played afterward.  We have some friends in our ward and in Cole's program at school that invited us to do fireworks with them. They had bought a ton. So our family and a few other families got together later that night to shoot them off. I had never done my own fireworks before but it was really fun. Not crowded, we got to control how long and where, and then no traffic when we left. Cade has been looking forward to fireworks for like a month now. He really enjoyed himself although he still covered his ears. Rylee was a little impressed but was more into the candy and treats that were there. 

Happy faces on our way to fireworks

The men. If you can still call them that after all the giggling they did. They really enjoyed blowing things up.  

Wives and children

 

Packing

Well packing is definitely under way. I am starting early because I want to make it as organized as possible and I have a lot of purging to do as well. Cole is the busiest he has ever been so I will probably be doing 95% of the packing myself. Which I am OK with, I actually kind of enjoy it. The process of going through things, organizing it into boxes and labeling it isn't bad. The hard part is doing all that and having happily entertained kids while I do it. But they love to help and so far have done a good job...kind of.  They have.....

helped with the bubble wrap....

helped me find things to put in the boxes...

made the bubble wrap into a popping runway...

helped me see the Olympic potential of our packing tape...

kept the boxes nice and in one location...

 helped me broaden my horizons on what boxes can do...

stayed busy and on the job...(sorry for the indecency)

and for the most part stayed happy and calm through the whole process...

Yay for packing!! :)