4th of July

I arrived back in Portland around 1:15pm and was on my way to Violet's by 3pm! Justin's family was there (minus Jenny & Dave's crew) and they were bbq'n and the girls were doing fireworks... well, I guess I should say Mia was instructing Daddy on the fireworks and Cannon was just shouting "firecracker" and laughing!! We did all the fun, little ones throughout the day... the pop-its, snakes, smoke bombs... then saved some of the flowers, eyeballs, & Roman candles for when it got dark.

Sparklers... while River Dancing!

I don't remember smoke bombs being this cool...

Cannon... just waking up & joining the party

Cannon ticklin' Papa

Poor Papa... it just never ends!!

This was just too funny not to post the series of pics...

(How precious is she?)

Love the action shot... check out the drip!

She's an old pro at this... apparently it happens frequently!

Aunt Abby & Cannon blowing bubbles

Mia Quinn

Like this, Daddy...

Cannon... supervising Mia's supervision (with Papa)

Cannon & Aunt Heather

Cannon being cute again!

I love this kid!

Still not so good with the night pics... but this is Mia & Nana having fun with the sparklers!!

It cracks me up how Roman candles were such a BIG deal growing up... they were the big, dangerous ones!! Well, here in WA... those are nothing... all the gigantic fireworks (the ones you only see in the city shows) are LEGAL... so every Tom, Dick and Harry are out there in your neighborhood setting off these HUGE fireworks!!! Which works out fabulously because you can sit in your own backyard, enjoy the show and let them waste all of their money!!

So when it got really dark, we all headed across the street to Violet and Justin's neighbor's house, who were also lighting off the big ones! Their backyard overlooks a lot of Vancouver and the smaller, surrounding towns, so we had the best seats in town!! We were able to see EVERYONE'S fireworks... it was a constant display across the entire horizon... it was beautiful!!! :-)