4th of JULY

We love the 4th of July!  I have always liked this holiday, but since moving to Texas it has become one of our favorite holidays.  The kids look forward to riding their bikes in the parade and then of course fireworks.  Our neighborhood puts on quite the display, some of our neighbors much spend a small fortune, but it is fun to watch we are literally surrounded by fireworks going off.  This year we went to the Haslet parade and fireworks show on Saturday the 3rd, then had our annual BBQ and fireworks with our friends on the 4th.  Don is gone to Arizona and Ben is in California so it was just me and the girls.  Luckily my friends husbands had no problems shooting off the fireworks for us this year!  We have had so much fun doing this every year and are going to miss our friends tremendously!

A friend from church painted the girls faces for the parade

waiting for fireworks!

Excited for the show to begin!

our 4th of July cake

Grace and Lilly best buddies

trying out some sparklers

Lilly couldn't get enough, she probably burned through 4 or 5 sparklers herself - she loved it!

New York City

Don and I were able to take a vacation in June to New York City without the kids!  It was so fun, I had always wanted to go to NYC and it did not disappoint!  We crammed so much into the 3 1/2 days we were there.  We went to a Yankees game, they were coming in on a 13 game winning streak - but of course lost the night we were there!  We saw Momma Mia on Broadway - we wanted to see Wicked but it was sold out for 3 weeks.  We took the boat out to Liberty and Ellis Island, walked around Times Square, went to Rockefeller Center and the Top of the Rock, went to China town and Little Italy, went to the Temple in Manhattan and of course rode the subway.  My only complaint is how expensive everything is there but I would love to go back and see it again.  Maybe when Andrew is finished with his mission I'll convince my mom to go out there and pick him up and of course I'll have to go as her tour guide ;)

Picture spot inside the gigantic toys r us in times square - what a HAM!

We were freezing during the baseball game the temp was in the 60's!

Lady Liberty

LDS Temple

Times Square

This was Dylans Candy Bar - it was amazing so much candy!  The steps were all filled with various types of candy it was really kind of cool.

View of Central Park from the Top of the Rock