The Fourth of July

At least I'm getting around to this before next July. We went up to Minnesota like we always do, but this time it was different. Rachel was missing. She was in Europe. Some other people were missing too. My aunt and one of my cousins. Lauren had mono, and my Aunt Mary stayed with her, which prevented her to come as well. So my uncle Tom came with just Alex and Jake. My other cousins weren't there, but cut them some slack, they live in Florida. Now last year everyone was here. Last year we had an absolutely miserable time with parades. It was raining/Slushing(the term isn't coming to mind), it was windy, and we didn't bring umbrellas. I think it was only supposed to rain. This was so bad we were standing in between scratchy pine trees  and putting on garbage sacks. But we weren't allowed to leave: it wasn't tradition. Anyways, back to this year: it was sooooo hot ! My cousin who isn't so little decided she wanted to climb the silo. I wouldn't do that in a million.

Brave girl and protective father climbing the silo

At the parade

Our typical picture face

Grandma opening presents (soap I made her :) not to brag or anything)

Uncle  , Grandpa  , and Dad ( I'm not going to include names)

The Beautiful traditional fire

Dad and Daughter after the climb

Watching the parade. Notice the grandparents aren't here? THey sat at the opposite side of the street two rows back because it was cooler. It's not the same if you're two rows back.

The little Island thing

Now the Fourth this year wasn't the full experience because we skipped fireworks. Even though we had less family members than usual, it was still a great time!