Fourth of July Fun!

I seem to say this a lot, but our celebrations of various holidays seem to keep evolving as kids enter our lives and grow up.  Holidays are an important part of our lives (and our culture), so keeping up with the traditions and making new ones is important as a family.  And it's also a lot of fun.  Fourth of July is one of those holidays that is getting to me more fun as the girls get older.  This year, like last year, we went to our friends house in Beaverton for a nice lunch and to watch their little neighborhood parade.  The weather was perfect and the girls had fun playing with the other kids.  Sasha loved the motorcycles and fire trucks and managed not to poke her eye out with a flag!

Later that day, after some power napping by all of us, we went to another party at our neighbors.  We brought some new neighbors to our friends house so their little boy could meet other families, and the kids entertained themselves all afternoon.  A bouncy house helped, and Sasha absolutely LOVED it!  She was giggling so hard and bouncing all around - super cute! 

The sun finally got (sort of) low enough in the sky to start some fireworks for the kids, so we lined them all up on the curb and lit off some fireworks in the street.  I loved that the kids were impressed with all the lame legal fireworks.  This was Morgan's first real time getting to stay up late enough to watch them, especially up close. Sam had taken Sasha home and I got to stay and chat with the other parents while we watched our kiddos ooh and aah over explosive things.  It felt very American!

I was impressed with Morgan who was going strong til after 9pm.  But I think I should have taken her home a little earlier because she did a double somersault down our friends concrete steps as a grand finale!  I watched it all happen, as if in slow motion, and was amazed when all she ended up with was a few scratches.  She must be part superhero!

Summertime is here!

We recently spent an entire week at the beach house, something we have never done before.  We had two different couples down with their kids and were able to settle in and relax.  We had nice weather most of the week and only a couple days of rain. 


Morgan had a lot of fun playing with her friend, Liam, who is the same age.  We went to the beach with his family a year ago and the kids didn't play that well together.  But now that they are a bit older, they kept themselves busy and got along great! They had fun throwing rocks into the ocean and spinning in the rocking chair.  We also made a visit to the Octopus tree, which Morgan can now correctly say (last summer is was "ocapus" - always a little sad when they leave those cute little words behind).


Sasha also had a "friend" come visit later in the week.  Baby Bella is only two days older than Sasha, but was born in Myanmar (Burma) to some international teacher friends of ours.  It was fun comparing the girls and seeing how similar they are. 

On the beach, Morgan loved writing letters in the sand and walking the balance beam on the logs.  Sam helped Morgan fly a kite for the first time.  It must have been her older cousin's kite because it was a war plane with shark teeth, but Morgan didn't mind.  I think Sam had more fun with it, but seeing Morgan jump up and down after it was pretty priceless.  The last day on the beach, the weather couldn't have been better - except that there was no wind to actually fly the kite - pretty rare on the Oregon coast.  Sam took Morgan to wade in the surf (she was in her undies because her pants were wet), Sasha was sitting on the blanket chewing on a sand toy, and I looked around thinking how happy I was at that very beautiful moment. 

After we were home, we had a fun 4th of July weekend filled with a trip downtown on MAX, a cute little 4th of July parade in our friends' neighborhood, and several barbecues with family and friends.  On the 4th, Morgan got to throw some "pop-its" and we lit a few little fireworks for her.  She was much more interested this year (last year she was scared of the sparklers I got her), but she put more of her efforts into a dance show to the tune of "Yankee Doodle," while her family sang. Sasha enjoyed her first 4th of July by napping very little all day and doing back bends out of the baby carrier.  Both girls are quite acrobatic!

We were so exhausted the night of the 4th that we were all asleep before 9:00.  Of course the fireworks woke Sam and me up, but fortunately the girls' slept through it all.  We are lucky to have good friends, a great beach house to escape to, and fun times as a family.  Hopefully the good times this summer will keep coming!