The 4th

Every year I take a picture of the kids in a flag print bathing suit during the first week of July.  Sometimes we're not home on the 4th, so I've given myself some leverage on the date. 

But this year, we were home, so we took Spencer's picture first thing in the morning. 

P.S. This blurry thing is not the real picture.  The flag suits are getting their own post, so this is a reject. 

Elliott had to go to swim lessons first.  He wore an alternative flag suit. 

We took his picture when he got home. Also not the real picture.

Then it was time for family pictures.  We took 875 because the camera is somehow malfunctioning and taking blurry pictures with the timer. 

But I narrowed it down to two.  I did the best job I could trying to sharpen the picture with software.  It's still not great. 

More pictures to show how we 4th of July so hard for the Facebook post. 

And some glamour shots for Ginger. 

That afternoon we made homemade chocolate ice cream. 

And big, fat burgers for dinner. 

Spencer drank hot tea, because it was only 111 degrees outside. 

We didn't do the ice cream early enough to harden up in the freezer after churning it, so it was still pretty soft. 

But still scoopable. 

I made low-carb vegan coconut mocha ice cream for myself.  It hardened like concrete overnight. 

But sitting out for 10 minutes made it scoopable. 

After dinner we did a few sparklers outside, 

And then drove to a dirt lot on an empty street to watch the fireworks.  

We had lots of "neighbors" who had the same idea, so the street was packed.  There were just no buildings to get in the way.  That's what I meant by empty. 

The show was fantastic.  I put on my Pandora John Phillips Sousa station because you can't watch fireworks on the 4th without some patriotic music. 

Then more sparklers in the dark back at home. 

It was a great 4th of July.  We're already talking about doing the exact same thing next year.