Happy 3rd and 5th of July!

This year was so fun! I am not sure if it was because once you throw kids in the picture everything is THAT much more exciting or if it was because instead of having one really LONG day of partying we had 3 days of fun. Whatever the reason it was a great weekend. And I am pretty sure Axel was a huge fan of this holiday!

BALLOONS

With Axel's obsession with balloons how could I pass up an opportunity to go see the Hot Air Balloons? (even with the 6:30 am launch time I was pretty excited to see this boys reaction.) However due to winds and such, ACTUAL launch time was somewhere around 8:30, but it was well worth the wait.

As seen here he was ALL SMILES when the balloons took off! This picture was worth every minute I lost of sleep. (lets be honest though, how much sleep do I REALLY get anyway?)

Lucky for us we sat RIGHT infront of the only 3 balloons that took off!There was a lot of waiting going on before and as you can see, the kids started to get a little grumpy waiting for things to happen.
Who likes waking up in the morning? Not this kid. (Like father like son!)

But his spirits were soon lifted after we walked over to the park and he saw all the balloons, and his silly cousins.
Cute Patchett Family
Us with my cute mom, (In case you were wondering Kory said he was "almost tempted to come a little", but sleep won in the long run, are you surprised?)

Liesel, Liam, Amy and Axel
The littlest boys club ever, and still growing (Oldest to youngest) Nicolas, Jacob, Hinkley, and Axel Don't forget the newest member, Liam (uh who is envious of those long locks and lashes?! What a cutie!)

Swimming

After the Balloons we went swimming with my family at grandma J's

FIREWORKS
That night we kept Axel up and drove to the Fireworks. Sad to say he thought the mosquito wipes and the sprinkler box we were sitting by were much more interesting.

PARADE / PICNIC
On monday we along with the rest of the Vally went to the parade, and I can say, this was my least favorite part, but I think we will still attempt it next year (no pictures either)

But after the parade we went on a picnic in the park, and while walking to our blanket, my mom tripped on the sidewalk and fell and hit her head, and it was scary at the time, but we laugh about it now.

This is my mom getting mad at me for taking picturesHowever, when I saw the fire truck driving across the lawn before the guy helping us got off the phone I couldn't help but laugh.
And here is the offending curb

ANDERSON BBQ
I pretty much just have pictures of swimming, but there was a BBQ, we were late, but the food was great!

Riley

Andy
RaineyKory

Cole
Kyle
Rainey and Syd
Story trying to get in
Andy
Cole, Jeremy and Austin
My baby holding on to the side all by himself!
Fattest baby award goes to AXEL
Trying to blow bubbles with mom
Cheese!
Cole (he came up to me and said "Amy I am a really good swimmer this year, watch!" Turns out he was trying to convince me so he didn't need lessons :) ALL good things come to an end. Some how, some way my baby slept through ALL the fire works, and they were LOUD. He was out! But don't worry he woke up once they stopped.
Side note: I was playing around with some Editing Actions in photoshop ( I have seen them all over peoples blogs for years now, and thought they were all just amazing photo editors, turns out all it takes is a click. (Big thanks to Kassie for saving me many many hours of trying to teach myself how to make my pictures look like that too) But I was trying to decide which ones I like the best. I opted not to do the Anderson BBQ because I thought people might want to snag the pictures from my blog and not have them vintage-a-fied.