Happy 4th of July!

This year we were able to go to Hurricane for the 4th of July weekend, and boy did we have a good time.  In fact, we took quite a bit of video over the weekend, and ever since we came home Amanda has wanted to watch the footage non-stop!

We are definitely not used to the heat anymore, so we kept trying to find ways to beat the heat!  Saturday we went swimming with the whole family, even Grandma and Grandpa Blue Car (this is what Amanda calls my parents)!  We had a good time and it felt so good to get my huge pregnant belly in the water!  Uncle Josh was so cute with Amanda at the pool (and the entire weekend for that matter).  Josh is  a lifeguard and teaches swim lessons, so he was really good at getting Amanda to be a little less scared of the water.  I am actually really grateful for this because even washing her hair has been a struggle!  After swimming with Josh though, we were able to get through a bath without a major struggle!  Thanks Uncle Josh!

Amanda also had fun helping Grandpa make an Australian dessert called a pavlova.  I LOVE this picture!

Sunday was a special day because, since most of us were down in Hurricane (all except Jacob who is in Texas with the Air Force), we decided to celebrate my Dad's 50th birthday.  His actual birthday isn't until the 19th, so the surprise went over very well! 

Here is my dad with one of his gifts from Jacob and Mary.   He got quite a kick out of it.

Our 4th of July turned out to be a very busy day!  We started out at the parade and park where Amanda had a blast getting all the candy!  They also opened up the new Hurricane Splash Pad and Amanda had a great time splashing and playing in the water.  We will definitely go back the next time we go to Grandma Blue Car's house!

After all the playing at the park, we all crashed for a couple hours, and then got ready again and went to Cars 2 in the theater.  Amanda finally made it through an entire movie in the theater, although she did struggle for a while.  She talks about watching cars on the "big big TV"  a lot now though, so I guess she enjoyed it.

Amanda was SO excited for the fireworks and had been talking about them for about a week.  She enjoyed the firework show, but kept talking about how the fireworks were "burntin' the moon!"  She was quite concerned.

Although the moon ended up being fine, the hill where they were setting the fireworks off, actually did catch on fire.  It looked like the last few fireworks went off too low, and the show was cut a little short.  They were able to contain the fire though, and it didn't get too big.

All in all, it was a very busy, but very fun weekend!  I know this is a long post, but I have two more pictures I want to share.  Lex and I are due only about 2 weeks a part from each other, so we decided we needed at least one belly picture together.

Billy and Charles didn't want to be left out of the picture taking so they decided to take one of their own.  It turned out quite nice!

I hope you all had as great a holiday weekend as we did!  Now we just need to finally catch up on our sleep!