4th of July Weekend

This summer has been non-stop fun and the 4th of July weekend was no exception.

It started off with a birthday party for Jack to attend. It was a water party and he had a ball!

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That evening we hit up Chuck-e-Cheese with the Edgintons. Somehow we've escaped going there thus far, so it was our kids' first time, but I have to say it was pretty fun...albeit a little gross. :)

Jack ran from ride to game to ride to game all night long. He LOVED it and has been begging to go back ever since.

Addie got a kick out of the rides.

I even took a turn on a few rides while Jeff played pop-a-shot all night. 

(PS Jeff told me to make a tough face since I was riding an ATV...I think I look more mad than tough. Whatever.)

The next day we woke up early and headed for Hanging Lake (just past Vail and on the way to Aspen) to go camping. Unfortunately the main hike (to the lake and waterfall) was full. Well, the parking lot was full I should say. They had the exit barricaded off so that no more cars could go in...it was that full. Turns out trying to do a popular hike over the 4th weekend was a mistake. Live and learn. Instead we headed for our campsite early and actually ended up scoring a better site than the one we'd reserved. They gave us the group site so we had 3 picnic tables and tons of room and privacy all to ourselves. It was awesome!

We borrowed our friends gigantic 10 person tent and all slept in it together. There was enough room for 2 queen size mattresses and a pack and play with lots of room to spare. I love this tent!

That evening we went on a small hike near our campsite.

Jeff, the pack mule.

That night we roasted hot dogs over the fire for dinner. There's something about eating food outside that makes it taste 10 times better than usual.

When it got really dark we busted out the glow necklaces and bracelets. I highly recommend these for any camping trip. The kids love them and it's nice for the adults to be able to see where the kids are going in the dark. Plus, you can get them at the dollar store. Love it.

We of course roasted s'mores.

Then late that night after we got all the kids to sleep in the tent we played a couple rounds of Settlers of Catan. It was a girls night with me winning the first game and Nachelle winning the second. Love that! :)

We finally made it to bed sometime around 2:30am. Side note: I always forget just how many stars there are in the sky until I go camping. Seriously it's amazing and beautiful.

Lookin' good on about 5 hours of sleep. ;)

Jack woke up refreshed though! By the way he LOVES camping. How do I know? He's told me probably 55 hundred times. "Mama, I love camping, I love it!" On the way home, "Mama, let's go camping again!"

Camping really was wonderful except for about 10 minutes while we were all breaking down camp and loading up the cars. I was busy cleaning up all the food on the picnic tables and the boys were busy taking the tent down. Addie was safe drinking her bottle in the pack and play and Lyla was in our car playing Jack's Leapster. Just setting the scene. Okay, so as I'm putting food away it suddenly dawns on me that it's been a while since I've seen Jack or Miya. So I yell to the boys if they've seen them. They tell me Nachelle and Miya went to the bathrooms. No one is sure if Jack went with them or not so I set out to check. The whole walk there I kept thinking to myself that he for sure followed them to the bathrooms. Where else would he be? So I wasn't too worried. Okay, quick pause, I forgot to mention that just below our camp site and right next to the bathrooms is a RAGING river. Back to the story...so I finally get to the bathrooms and open the door to find Nachelle and Miya. I asked Nachelle if Jack was with them and she says no. Immediately I PANICKED! I took off running back to the camp site and started yelling to the boys, "Jack didn't follow Nachelle! I don't know where he is!" Jeff took off in one direction, Jay in another and I in another. We were all yelling his name and the longer we yelled with no response the more terror swept through my body. I can not describe how many horrible thoughts of my baby boy being swept away down the river went through my head. I've never been that scared and panicked in my ENTIRE life. It. Was. Horrible. Thankfully, when Nachelle returned from the bathroom she found Jack sitting quietly in her car playing Miya's Leapster! UGH!!! Why didn't I think to look in her car? I had checked my car, but it didn't even dawn on me to check her car. Jeff says he assumed I'd already checked her car, which is why he didn't check there. I blame the fact that as soon as Nachelle said he wasn't with her I immediately went into irrational panic mode and was not thinking clearly. She yelled to all of us that she found him and we all came running. I've never been so happy to see Jack as I was then. I asked him if he could hear us calling his name and he said he could, but when I asked him why he didn't respond he didn't seem to have an answer. Then he said, "You were all looking for me?!" with a surprised tone. He had no clue that his mother had just been to hell and back in those 10 minutes. When we got in the car to drive away I broke down in tears. I know he was fine all along, but my heart was racing so hard and my adrenaline was pumping so fast that I just sort of needed an emotional release to calm back down.

What I learned from this experience is that it's always when the adults are busy working that bad things happen. When we were just hanging out we all were on constant alert about where the kids were and what they were doing, but when we got busy cleaning up that's when we let the kids out of our sight. Thankfully we'd had a long talk with Jack when we first arrived about staying by us always and NEVER wandering off, but when they are only 3 years old you just never know if it all sinks in. In the future I will be more conscientious of my kids while I'm setting and cleaning up in addition to all the time.

The drive home.

 Both our kids passed out in the back seat. It made for a quiet drive home.

We got back from camping Monday afternoon on the 4th of July and after unloading the car and immediately throwing every smokey smelling item into the wash it was time for us to wash ourselves. It was 100 degrees that day (not normal for these parts) and our AC decided to freeze up while we were away so our house was sweltering. I decided we needed to go swimming to get out of the heat. It was a perfect way to cool down and wash the smokey smell off of us! :)

That evening we got dressed in our festive clothing and headed to the Edgington's for a BBQ and fireworks.

Once again trying to get these two to smile and look at the camera at the same time is nearly impossible.

Addie LOVES watermelon!

Jeff entertained the kids with his throw an olive in the air, catch it in his mouth, and turn it into a carrot routine. It killed every time.

Just look at these delighted faces!

Jeff also taught the kids how to put olives on their fingers. They thought that was pretty awesome. And it is.

When it got dark we started our fireworks show with Jeff as our main pyro technician. Jack and Miya loved helping him place the fireworks and then RUN back to their seats once it was lit.

Whew! What a weekend. We played our little hearts out and it was fun!

I LOVE holiday weekends!!!