Our first 4th of July as a family

For a long time I thought that Brandon would be away at SERE school over the 4th of July weekend.  I was really bummed about that because I wanted to take the kids to the Freedom Fest here at Fort Rucker, but I didn't want to do it by myself.  Large crowds of people make me nervous even when I don't have four kids to keep track of.  And I had no idea how Derrick would react to the fireworks. 

I was considering finding a family to adopt us for the holiday or maybe even not going at all.  But then Brandon's SERE school date changed and so that meant we could all go to the Freedom Fest together.   

This turned out to be the first Fourth of July that we spent as a family of six.  Brandon was in Korea last year and we'd spent the 4th of July with my best friend Ashley and her family.  And the year before that we'd had a great 4th of July, but Veronica wasn't born yet. It's hard to believe that there ever was a time that she wasn't in our family.  Actually it's getting harder and harder to remember those three years where we didn't have any kids at all. 

Freedom Fest was held on Thursday, July 2.  Most of the soldiers got a 4 day weekend so the people in charge of the event wanted to hold it before people headed out of town.  The event started at 4:00 with rides and games and food, and I thought about going right at 4:00, but I worried it would be too hot.  Then Brandon got put on a parking lot attendant detail that lasted until 6:30 so that changed the plans a little. 

He went to park cars while I worked on cute outfits for the kids.  Charlotte had a lot of fun putting together outfits with me.  She also wanted me to braid her hair and put a gold ribbon in her hair.  And she took a lot of time to dress up Hundley.  Here are the girls all dressed up, I kind of feel like they are all wearing eachother's pants, but other than that the outfits turned out really cute and festive.

Brandon came home and we walked up to the festival fields together.  The fields are just a few streets from our neighborhood.  I was glad to know that we wouldn't be stuck waiting in our car in traffic after the firework show.

When we arrived at the fields we went to check out the static displays of aircraft.

My kids love posing with helicopters.

Here are Charlotte and Lydia checking out the cargo area of a blackhawk.

And here's Veronica trying testing out a seat.

The girls liked looking at the cockpit.  A Black hawks is the type of helicopters that Brandon wants to learn how to fly.  But he wont be assigned an aircraft until several months from now..

There were lots of rides for kids, but I wasn't sure if Charlotte and Lydia were tall enough,  There was also a bounce house area, but I felt like it was way too expensive.  (We've been to a lot of free bounce houses so paying any money for those seems like a rip off.)  We ended up decided to all go on a little train ride and call it good.

We ended up in different cars.  Here are Brandon and the girls.

And here are Derrick and Veronica and I.  

Derrick was really unsure about the whole thing at first.  He wanted to get out, but he calmed down really fast.  He liked it when we started moving.   Veronica just climbed in a sat down without a problem.

Charlotte and Lydia were really excited.

The kids all had fun waving at people as we drove by.  The rest of the night Derrick would point in the direction of the train and say "train."

It was starting to get dark so we decided to go find a spot to sit down.  There was a live band that was going to play until the fireworks started.  We picked a place that was far enough away from the sound system that Derrick wouldn't freak out from the noise.  There also weren't that many people around us.  I'd bought glowsticks at the dollar store the day before so we got those out for the kids to play with them.  

The kids had been really sad about not going on any more rides, but they forgot all about that once the glowsticks lit up.

I'd bought several different shaped glowsticks so those were fun to put together.

Everyone had lots of fun with those.

The band started playing and we had a lot of fun listening to them and relaxing on the picnic blanket. 

The girls had lots of fun making different shapes with the glowsticks.

Here's what it looks like with the flash.

Derrick had been sitting with me, but at some point he decided that he wanted to be in the wagon.  I guess he felt more comfortable listening to the music while he was in the wagon.  I put the wagon behind me and liked that I could lean up against it.

The weather was perfect.  We'd had a huge rainstorm at about noon.  That had cleared out the humidity.  There was a slight breeze blowing and everything felt great.  

The band was really good.  I think my favorite song was when they played "Sweet Home Alabama."  I never thought I'd actually live in Alabama while listening to that song.  I'm glad this place is my home right now.

One of the nice things about living less than 50 miles from the Eastern Time Zone is that it gets dark really early.  The firework show started at 9:00.

Poor Derrick.  He started crying as soon as he heard the first boom.  At first we tried holding him, but he wanted to be in the wagon.  He buried his eyes into his fists and stayed like that the whole half hour show.  I'm pretty certain he fell asleep that way for a little bit.

The show was one of the best I've seen.  It ended with a big finale that unfortunately was slightly obscured by the smoke.

Then we packed up our stuff into the wagon and walked home.  Freedom Fest had been the perfect way to begin the 4th of July weekend.

Except that Freedom Fest had been all that we had planned for the weekend.  We'd thought that Brandon would go to SERE on July 5th, but that got pushed back again.  So that meant we had a four day weekend without any plans.  That turned out to be not so fun.  (I'm not complaining here, but it's kind of hard to appreciate a long weekend when your husband only works about three hours a day anyway.)

We did do some fun stuff though.  On Friday Brandon and I were going to go see the new Terminator Movie, but instead we decided to just explore down town Ozark a little bit.  We dropped the kids off at the babysitters and then picked up hamburgers at Burgerking.  We ate them at this little vacant store area that is next to the courthouse square.

It's really quirky, but also pretty cute.

Then we walked around the little mainstreet area.  We stopped for a little while at this reflecting garden next to a church.

It was really pretty and relaxing.

And then we went and got Ice cream at Milky Moos.  (The local equivalant of Aggie Ice cream)

After we picked the kids up from the babysitter we put Derrick and Veronica to bed.  Then Brandon and the girls got ready for their back yard camping trip.  They set up the little tent and then roasted marshmallows over the little camp stove.

They slept out there all night.  I could hear the girls giggling for a while as Brandon told them silly things.

Saturday was the actual 4th of July.  We briefly considered taking the kids to the firework show in Dothan, but two late nights we'd already had with the kids were taking their toll.  We decided it would be better for everyone if we just put them to bed on time.  It ended up raining in the evening so I'm glad we didn't go.  But the whole day just felt blah.

Sunday was pretty normal.  On Monday we decided that we had to get out of the house so we took the kids for a little walk on some trails on Fort Rucker.  I forgot the camera, but that doesn't mean we didn't have fun. Derrick actually walked the whole way and had lots of fun running too.  He kept pointing things like water, trees, and rocks out to me.

The weekend was great, but I think we were all secretly happy when we went back to our usual routine on Tuesday.

Speaking of usual routine.  Derrick is going through that stage when he wakes up in the middle of the night and thinks, "I have to find mom NOW."  He's always climbing in bed with me at night.  Brandon puts him back and then Derrick comes back in our room a few hours later.  One evening I found him asleep in front of my bedroom door when I finished my work out routine.  He always brings his pillow and his blanket with him.

Charlotte and Lydia end up sharing a bed just about every night.  I'll put them to bed in their own beds, but when I check on them a few hours later I always find that Lydia is up in Charlotte's bed.

Lydia has started to wear one of Brandon's old hats everywhere.  She loves to dress like a princess and wear an Army patrol cap.  

We discovered that Veronica can climb stools and reach the cabinets.  

 So far this hasn't been too bad of a problem.  She entertained herself stacking and unstacking cans for about 30 minutes while Brandon made dinner the other night.

Things are about to get really crazy for us in the next few days.  My brother is getting married in Utah next week and so the kids and I are driving to Utah.  I'm caravanning most of the way with my sister Lindsey.  I think I should be nervous about the trip, but I'm oddly relaxed.  So either I'm in denial or I'm just really used to road trips.  Actually it's probably just because a roadtrip is a lot easier than moving.  

I'll let you know how the trip goes in my next post.