Happy July 4th!

Pictures:

* The crew at the Seymour 4th of July parade

* Kyle at Monical's with his Aunt Kris and Aunt Jill

* Brooke & Aunt Jill trying out the sparklers

* All of the kids in one picture (thanks to suckers!) L-R: Kyle, Brooke, Ryan & Jack
* Kyle & Uncle Mark in the fire truck

* Kyle & Aunt Jill in front of the corn - so much for "knee high by the fourth of July"!

* Kyle, the bubblemaster, blowing bubbles for "the trips" as Papa Logan cheers them on

We had a great trip to Champaign for the 4th of July holiday. The kids are starting to not like the 5.5 hour ride so we're now having to stop for a meal and to run around...Elmo videos are only interesting for so long!

We started the weekend with the annual parade in Seymour. It's a Logan family tradition and the kids all love it. Kyle is now a huge fan, mostly because he gets a HUGE bag of candy! It's a great, small town parade with tractors, fire trucks and clowns - true Americana. We waited in line for animal balloons and the kids all had them popped before we left! One of the highlights for Kyle was that he got to sit in Uncle Mark's fire truck!

No day in Champaign is complete without Monical's Pizza for dinner then later that evening, we went out to Kris & Mark's to watch fireworks. The kids all had a blast blowing bubbles, watching sparklers, throwing pop-its and watching fireworks from three different towns. It was a late night but the triplets did great! Kyle always has such a fun time with his aunts, uncles, cousin and grandpa.

On Sunday we went to the petting zoo. Everyone had a great time watching the miniature ponies, pigs, sheep, ducks, bunnies, etc. Brooke kept crouching down by the bunny cages and waving to them, saying "hi bunny, hi bunny!". We left there and went to Ed's dads for the annual 4th of July picnic. We always celebrate Kyle & Logan's birthdays then too. Kyle adores Logan (as you can see from the picture above) and they had a blast running all over on one of the hottest days of the summer. I was sweating just watching them! Later that evening, Jill/Sal/Logan/Ed/Kyle went to the Champaign fireworks while I went home with the babies. They had a long day because they were up so late the night before. They were in bed before 7 pm and I then ordered a pizza, had a drink and read a book...life doesn't get much better :-)

After our fun, action packed weekend, we left for home on Monday. After 15 years of traveling back and forth from Michigan to Champaign, Ed decided to try out a new route this time. Needless to say, our 5.5 hour trip turned into 8 hours! We only stopped for a long dinner and a little exercise. A good portion of our trip was on two lane, country roads through Indiana and I think we saw more cows on this trip than we've ever seen! Thank goodness the kids were troopers, but we'll be sticking to our normal route from now on!