4th of July

4th of July was just another busy day around here...

First we went to my aunt Mary's house who was putting on a huge BBQ! Here we all are (some of us anyway) gathered around the table enjoying some yummy food...

Josh is in town again for the 4th, he had the kids earlier in the day and brought them over... Here we got 4 generations- you know I LOVE these kind of pictures: Great-grandma Shield, Mom- me, Jade and Grandma Cindy...

Thanks Mary for the yummy BBQ lunch! After that, the kids and I headed over to port orchard. Jeromy was already there. Our church has a trailer that they set up along the board walk along the water in down town port orchard. Jeromy was helping out with manning the trailer. They were handing out free hot dogs and coffee and water to people coming to watch the fireworks. There was also live bands thru out the day and other food vendors.

They also had a free bouncy house for the kids to play in...This picture cracks my up, when did Kent become one of the big kids? I couldn't even fit his whole body in this picture... that kid loves to bounce tho...

Everyone took turns holding up signs saying "free coffee", "free hot dogs", and "honk if you love Jesus!"- it was nice to hear alot of honks!Some adorable kids: Tae' and Nadia...Kent, Jade and Ashton...Jade, Julia, Tae' and Stephanie...Jade and Kent at the waterfront...The four of us!While Jeromy was working at the trailer, the kids and I walked down to the other end of the waterfront where the live bands were playing and got some ice-cream-- Kent got a root beer float!Uh oh... watch out... there's an adorable baby here with chubby cheeks just waiting to be kissed... it's baby Natalie! (J2 and Maranda's daughter!) Jade holding Natalie, even Kent wanted to hold her. Kent thought it was cool that Natalie kept smiling at him, must be those shiny braces!Do I look happy holding this little baby or what? Again Jeromy is lucky I am "fixed" cause those hormones are raging when I hold little babies! She is the cutest little girl and so happy! I think I held her for a few hours!Finally it got dark, the trailer was getting packed up at about 10pm so we all could watch the fireworks, and then down comes the rain--LAME! It poured! The teenagers didn't mind, they were out dancing in it... ahhh to be young.... I remember playing in the rain as a teenager feeling invincible... now... I can't stand wet soggy feet, chills, nope don't like it one bit. Just call me middle aged... is 35 considered middle aged? If not I'm knocking at the door... and that's ok, as long as I don't get wet! Here's Stephanie, Jade, Danny and Simone... see the firework going off behind them?So that was last night... today the kids are flying back to California with their dad... for a month... it's ok you can feel sorry for me :o( I'm feeling sorry for myself, I know they're going to have a great time with their dad, I'm just going to miss them like crazy!

Here they are just before leaving...

Here they are realizing they aren't going to see their mom for a month... yeah, they posed for this one just to make me feel better... The kids made it safely to California, Jade already text me to say they made it. Jeromy and I went out to lunch then a movie. Then we did some shopping at Costco, he got a cool new Ipod.

We have just been relaxing most of the day. Hope everyone had a great 4th of July weekend!