This independence day was so different that previous years, for several reasons, but we still had a great long weekend! We spent it at the lake as we usually do.
On Thursday night, the kids had tumbling and then I met my mother in law so she could take them overnight. The next morning, a friend was being induced to have her third baby girl and asked me to photograph it {YES PLEASE!} Unfortunately, she ended up not being able to go in for her scheduled induction because the hospital was filled, so I packed up, met Adam for a quick lunch on the patio, and headed to the lake. I picked up the kids and we headed to the lake for some root-beer floats! I made them each one, but they wanted to share, how adorable, right?! After that, we went to our friend Kim's parents lakehouse for dinner and an amazing fireworks show that they put on each year. I only took one photo! :(
It stormed like crazy Friday night, and by the time we woke up on Saturday, temperatures plummeted into the 60's! That's unheard of for Iowa in July! We went into town to watch the annual parade. It was a little stressful because all of the big kids kept getting closer and closer to the parade floats so the floats started throwing the candy really close to the cars {by the kids, obviously}, so my kids wanted to run up there for the candy {expected}, but I wasn't comfortable with it. Note to self, next year sit by adults {or just bring a bag of candy and throw it around your kids so they think they're getting candy, as suggested by my genius friend Brooke!} Either way, it was one of the nicest, and longest parade's Montezuma has had since I've been going.
After the parade, we went to the 'square' and listened to a band of high school boys before going to listen to Adam & Mark plan an accoustic set. I didn't take a photo again {I blame this on Snapchat! MurdocksMama if we aren't friends already}
After that, we went home for naps before our friends Mark & Kathy came to the lake for the night. We ended up making dinner, taking a Jeep ride, and ending the night with cocktails and a jam session around the bonfire after the kids went to bed.
Sunday started nice and slow, but had me missing my family {my sister, bil, mom & dad were in South Carolina -- more to come on that and my other sister & bil were in Des Moines because he had to work} since they usually come to the lake over the 4th.
We went to Joe & Kim's for brunch and then hired a babysitter to watch the kids during nap-time so we could go out on the boat for the afternoon. That evening we went to our friends Brooke & Jesse's for dinner. We headed for home early {everyone was sleeping before 10!} because we had the kids and everyone was going out to celebrate Jesse's birthday!
On Sunday, Independence Day, we lounged most of the day, too. We took a Jeep ride over to feed the goats and then to the Farm for lunch and an afternoon of skeet shooting and 4-wheeler rides, before coming back to our house to make s'mores and light sparklers. Unfortunately, our sparklers weren't very 'sparkly' if you will. However, the kids will happy with them, until we went over to our friends house and they had better ones. The kids ended up playing with sparklers, snakes, and 'poppers' for the rest of the evening {sadly, I didn't have my camera with me!}
