4th of July fun!

For the 4th of July we decided to be adventurous and venture a little further away from home. We went to Ft Leavenworth (an army base) to celebrate our country's independence day. We had read in a travel magazine about Ft Leavenworth being a great choice for the 4th and we really wanted to check out another fireworks show from last year. We went to Independence last year and not that it was bad but we didn't have a great view, too many tree's in the way, and the traffic was a mess. Ft Leavenworth is about 30 minutes away from home so not too far. Was it worth it? YES!!! We had so much fun! It was a very patriotic show and was awesome! They shot off a cannon for all 50 states, I didn't get a picture of that but I will next year with all the state flags displayed. Because this is our new family tradition for July 4th. So, here are all the pics from our fun day!






We brought a picnic lunch of homemade pulled pork sandwiches and salads and all the other sides to go with a traditional picnic- it was so yummy. I have to pat myself on the back because it was delicious! And of course I ate way too much and seeing these pictures reinforces my slimfast plan!






They had a couple of inflatable toys that the kids could play on. And bonus: it was all for free. They had workers there to keep it orderly and fair to everyone, it worked so well. It was good we were there early because the boys played before the lines got too long. Josh may be small for his age but he can keep up with the best of them, nothing deters that kid. Size holds nothing over him!




This was a really pretty fountain that they had dies blue. It was really cool. We just had to get pictures by it. Nate took our picture and he didn't do too bad if I say so myself. The boys really wanted to throw rocks in there but we wouldn't let them. But that didn't stop Colton, he had Josh's spiderman water bottle and while we were getting our picture taken he threw it in the water. Josh saw it and started freaking out so we scooped it out and saved the day. While Colton was clueless that he had done anything wrong even with Josh telling him he was a "bad baby" over and over again.






This was awesome, they had parachuters jump from an airplane and it was right over our heads! There were 4 of them total! The boys loved the jumpers. They were so close to us and did I mention right over our heads. The last jumper that had a flag on him came right above us and just floated there for what seemed like forever. He was so close you could see his face but I was frantically trying to get his picture because it would have been an incredible picture but alas to mine and Danny's utter disappointment I didn't get it. I was zoomed in too close and all I got was like a big zoomed in shot of half his legs and I erased it from the camera. You can kind of tell in the second to last picture here that he's right above us and he seriously was so close. Oh, I did forget to mention that I didn't get the shot because I was in a panic mode worrying about my 3 babies because I felt like he was going to drop down right on us that's how close he was.




Just waiting for it to get dark and the fireworks to start.




The fireworks have begun and they are all in awe!

Amongst all the noise, Colton managed to fall asleep!

One moment Josh is mesmerized.......

the next he is out cold!

The fun has come to an end we managed to get them loaded in the stroller without waking them up.

We really had a good time as a family. And traffic was so smooth and easy. We had a good parking spot that wasn't too far away, it took us less than 5 minutes to get to the truck and once we were all loaded up we got off of base in less than 10 minutes and on the road. The military police were directing traffic so efficiently that it was amazing how smoothly it all went. The only thing we'll do differently next year is not show up so early, I think we'll leave at 5pm instead of 4pm. But other than that it was a very fun night!