Our busy, but fun, holiday weekend

I hope everyone had a fun 4th of July weekend! We sure did!

Saturday. of course, was the 4th and we had a lot of fun! We started out the day by having a very yummylicious breakfast of my absolute favorite.... french toast! Mmmmmmmmmmm!!!! We were going to go to the parade after breakfast, but sometimes things get in the way and we didn't make it. We were having some people over for dinner later anyway that we needed to get things ready for.

People started showing up around 4 for dinner and fireworks. We had a delicious bbq and Peter cooked enough to feed a small army! Hotdogs and brats, hamburgers, and chicken galore! Our guests also brought the side dishes so we had potato salad, bean dip with chips, and water melon and cantaloupe. It was a very yummy feast! We were all very fat feeling afterwards, hehe!

Then the time came for fireworks! Every year we put on our own show as well as watch the professional displays put on by all the towns around here. Peter's parents live on top of a hill where we can see the whole valley and on hte 4th see all the different cities firework displays! It's really cool! Anyway, we started our own display of fireworks around 9ish with the kiddy stuff that it doesn't really need to be dark for. The girls had a lot of fun playing with sparklers! Alexis was so good at being sure she held it outward from her body! Once it got dark, we got to the good stuff! It was very fun, pretty, and loud! :) We finished our display around midnight. I let both girls stay up totally expecting at least Alexis to fall asleep in someones arms, Natalie always did, but neither didn't, they both stayed awake the whole time! But they had a lot of fun watching the pretty "boom booms" so I didn't mind too much.

Peter and my anniversary is on the 6th. We celebrated it on Sunday though this year. We left the girls with Grandma and Papa and we went out. I had no idea what was on the agenda and of course, PEter wasn't telling me. He surprised me by taking me to lunch in Blaine, WA and then we ventured up to Canada and to Vancouver BC! We walked off our lunch at Metropolis, a large mall in Vancouver BC. It was three stories of stores, stores, stores! Most of them were stores that looked too expensive to even walk into because I knew that there wasn't anything I could afford in them. But the best part of the mall experience was people watching! There were a few interesting characters.... AFter we were done walking the mall (which took over 2 hours and we didn't go into that many stores), we drove around the beautiful city Vancouver! I was in high school the last time I had been there and that was 10 years ago! It was gorgeous! After our drive, we headed back to the border and then stopped at a very nice restaurant for dinner. And let me tell you, I had the best steak I've EVER had. Yummm! My mouth still waters when I think of that steak! We were going to go watch a movie after dinner and we had crossed the border back into the US, but the movie that we wanted to see didn't start again until 10:30 and we didn't want to wait an hour and a half, so we rented a movie instead and came home and watched "In Pursuit of Happyness." Such a great movie! I'd recommend it if you haven't seen it!

That was our weekend! It was a fun filled weekend! And now for some non-weekend related news and a bragging mother moment. Alexis has started counting and attempting to say her ABCs. She can count to 13 consistantly, there was one time she counted up to 18 all by herself! And she'll start saying her ABCs in chunks! Her favorite chunk is O, P, Q, R, S, T, U! She is so smart! As is her sister! We are working on reading with Natalie, and when Natalie is really focused into it (which sometimes is a struggle), she can sound out words! We may have a reader before school starts again!!!