Fourth fun

We had a great time celebrating the fourth of July in downtown Raleigh this year. Fayetteville street was lined with oodles of fair food, smokey barbecue, live music and all kinds of red white and blue hulabaloo. 

After walking around in the crowd we stopped for some patriotic fun in front of the Capital building. The boys signed a copy of the Declaration of Independence with a real feather pen(turns out it's a bit harder than one would think and a lot messier!) and Bennett got to "pie a redcoat."

Next we beat the heat with a trip through the NC museum of history. The story of our state and country is a rich but heavy one, and I look forward to taking our boys back when they're older and can bear the weight of it on stronger, more mature shoulders. Until then, Evan is very proud to know that the the state vegetable of North Carolina is the sweet potato(really, he won a pencil to prove it!).

The highlight of our Raleigh afternoon was of course, the wet and wild water zone. This activity was made even cooler by A)endless bottles of dawn soap and B)the fact that we were not prepared with bathing suits and so the boys got to get wet in their regular shorts, a childhood right of passage if you ask me.

SO much fun!

Later that night we made our traditional ice cream flag cake and had a hodge podge of an on the fly dinner that included of Mexican leftovers, Chinese food and local deli meats. Chris and I agreed that this was indeed a very American dinner, melting pot style. :-) No fireworks this year due to babies and bedtime, but we look forward to them in the future-perhaps even next year. Nonetheless, we are so proud and thankful every day for the blood bought freedoms we enjoy as Americans.

Happy Independence Day!!!