Holiday weekends are where it’s at. Not that we ever need a reason to hang out with friends and family and play until the sun goes down, but at least on holidays it makes us feel like we have a purpose for it.

We started out the weekend with the city’s 4th of July parade.

It was overcast and sprinkling but that didn’t stop us from enjoying the view and the most important part, getting lots and lots of candy.

Music and dancing galore, and everyone that entered the parade did such a fun job. We had lots of favorites.

Even the furry ones enjoyed the show.

The kids got their bags and buckets filled with goodies and had already devoured half of it when the parade came to an end with the loudest ones of all. The firetrucks.

 The day was just getting started. The daddies took the babies and dogs and hit up the store while us mamas took the older kids to a movie.

Then it was back to the house for games and a barbecue. You can never have enough barbecue.

We filled the table with chicken, and hamburgers. Pulled pork and rolls. Watermelon and coleslaw. Potato salad and baked beans. The works. Oh, and of course, corn on the cob.

And no celebration is complete without s’mores. Lots and lots of gooey, messy, delicious s’mores.

If you’ve kept up with the news, you might have seen that most of our state has been on fire recently. Consequently, no fire work show for us. We didn’t let that kill the party though, and Hayden and the kids played until they were covered in dirt and marshmallow. She only made it to the couch before she crashed for the night.

Sunday brought the sunshine so we wasted no time at all in loading up the boat and kayaks and heading to the lake. Everyone else had the same idea as we were surrounded by families tubing and swimming their hearts out. We even had the tiniest of navigators.

We jumped in and swam and played until the babies needed a nap and headed back to shore to unwind and catch a couple more hours of those perfectly warm rays.

We took our sunburned bodies home and filled our bellies with more barbecue. Baths and pajamas out the way, we curled up with a movie and were out for the count.

Now this is what I would call my all American dream.