Fourth of July

We celebrated the 4th Miami-style this year, and I have to say, it did not disappoint! 

We started out the morning with a ward breakfast, they had delicious mangoes, watermelon (a must for the 4th, right?) and these pastry things that reminded me of baclava but with jelly and were absolutely divine. I would know, I ate about six of them at least.

Oh yeah, and the CUTEST little 4th of July kids were there to celebrate!

Obviously, he wasn't that into having his picture taken, but isn't his hat the greatest!?!?!?!

I discovered that Ruthie has an adorable twin-ner in our ward. She is a couple years older, but she has dark red hair and brown eyes. I thought her and Ruth were the cutest thing together.

Will trying to get in on the game action.

See how adorable she is, her and Ruth should be friends.

They played a game where you had to sit on your balloon to pop it--Ruth was at a disadvantage being one of the very youngest to play, but she sure worked hard at it!

33 1/2 weeks

 After the breakfast we went home for naps and Sterling tried to study. Then we opted for KFC and dilly bars from DQ for lunch. It was pretty much the perfect 4th of July lunch since I didn't have to cook (it's hot and I'm pregnant, right?) and it felt very American. Those dilly bars were BIG and I thought for sure I'd get to finish at least Will's--no such luck, Will had ice cream streaming down his hands but he still ate it all!

I had asked on our Relief Society fb page about places to go. I was willing to have some crowds in order to see fireworks (I really love fireworks!) but I obviously wanted it to be somewhat family-friendly. We drove about forty minutes (Miami traffic-kills me!) further south to Homestead and a NASCAR raceway, super cool!, for their free carnival and fireworks. We got there right at six hoping that if the kids fizzled out at least we'd have some fun first. It was great, Ruth got to go on quite a few rides and then all of a sudden the masses arrived and we stood in one line for thirty minutes. So we ditched the rides for snow cones, which was the best way to go, I think.

We liked this food truck.

Nascar speedway track on the left. Miami palm trees. 

The carnival.

Half-way through this ride it got pretty fast and Ruth was not too sure about it, I felt bad. But she didn't cry and was smiling again by the end so I think she liked it.

This was one of my favorite things to look at all night long--all of the beautiful beads in the little girls' hair. I LOVE it. They go all out with the little girls' hair and some of them are just so cute.

Will's face started out unsure and broke into tears pretty soon into the ride. The guy was going to stop it, but we are mean parents and wanted to see how he'd do. He stopped crying, but he never looked very happy. Of course, once it ended he cried cause he had to get out. Haha!

Nice/freaky staff member helping Ruth up the slide. 

Will's face here pretty much epitomizes how happy we all were about the snow cones. It was hot. Right then though the sun set and a breeze rolled in and we ate our snow cones and life felt a LOT better.

Ruth laughing at an elderly lady sitting beside us, who Will happened to walk up to and hold out his arms to, so I guess we were best friends. 

Cutest boy ever.

Watching the fireworks:

Oh, I really love fireworks. And July 4th. And the fact that Miami is 500x better at getting traffic out after big events than Logan is. We were home from these fireworks twice as fast (and lived twice as far away) as last years fireworks in Logan. Haha. What a great day! So grateful to live in this wonderful country!