Happy Independene Day! Part 1

The Fourth of July weekend held so many great things for us that I've had to split it into two blog posts, so check out the one below this for the continuation. We had Ross and Kendra and their two kids, Ethan and Lydia come stay with us for the long weekend, and it was such a great way to celebrate! Despite the fact that we only had 780 square feet of living space, we fit 4 adults, 2 kids and 2 dogs pretty comfortably. There were some fights, but as you'll see below, they were all in good fun!





(Lydia, the dogs miss you - especially Brook! She loved having you there to pet her all the time!) Our guests arrived on Saturday afternoon, so we kept the evening low-key and Kendra and I went to a movie (Eclipse!) and Chase, Ross, and the kids rented Monsters Versus Aliens. Sunday morning we went to church (or at least most of it... it would have helped if I'd remembered the correct starting time for church!), and then went to the Air and Space Museum out by Dulles Airport. Ross and Ethan especially liked that museum! Here is a picture of Ethan. He asked for the car keys and then stood next to the space shuttle - like he had the keys to drive it! I thought it was super funny! Kendra is taking a picture of him holding the keys here:




After we got back from the museum, we went home and packed up a picnic supper and headed into the city for the fireworks. The metro car was hot, but we were in good spirits. Lydia and I are in the back, Kendra and Ross in the middle, Ethan in the front.

There was hardly anyone on the Metro on the way in, which had me worried. But we got to the Lincoln Memorial and there was all kinds of room to watch the fireworks in the grass next to the stairs. We even had plenty of shade! We put down our blankets and feasted on a delicious picnic supper.

I can't even express to you how many people came out for the fireworks. It was INCREDIBLE! I don't have a picture that really captures the sheer immensity of the crowd. This picture was taken at the bottom of the Lincoln Memorial steps. There were thousands upon thousands of people there to watch. The good thing about a crowd of that size for an event like this, though, was that everyone was in pretty good spirits, and we sat by some really nice people.

Continued below...