The Forgotten "Fourth" Post and FFF

I realized today as I was going through some pictures
that we skipped a week of FFF and festivities,
so I wanted to "back-post" these pictures!

For the Fourth of July

even though it was a Wednesday
we decided to take a Family Photo, since we were so coordinated!

Two Hickle Men, hanging out on a porch,
waiting for another to join their Hickle force
Little Buddy says, "I'll be there soon!
Just makin' sure I've grown enough in the womb!"
Two Hickle Men, soon will become three
Brings joy to the heart of this again Mother-to-be.

For the Fourth of July we opted to stay in town
while most of the Hickle relatives went to nearby Red Lodge,
so that Daddy could study for his MicroBiology final on the fifth,

(by the way, this proud wife must announce
he has maintained his avg, and got another A!)
and then we could attend and volunteer for our church's HUGE event:
the only fireworks in Billings,
and a FREE afternoon of activities, concerts and more!

I don't know if you can tell-- but that's all inflatables in the pic above!
They lined the entire park area; there were over 25 of them!!!

And there were pools of Bubble Solution
for lil' tykes to play with

We decided to sign Greg up for a shift to work
from 5-7 running the inflatables.
That way I'd feed the kids dinner while he worked,
we'd go visit him at his inflatable,
and then I'd only have to walk around with them by myself
for a little while!

So first thing we did was go cool down from the heat
by enjoying an ice cold Shaved Ice (only 50 cents)
which Robbie was not so sure about,
but Taylor loved!

Then we picked up some hamburgers for just a few bucks,
and ran around the picnic area
while we passed some time before going over to visit Daddy.

While we were running around waiting,
the wind picked up, and a predicted storm reared it's ugly head,
so all the inflatables had to be temporarily deflated...
which meant Daddy stayed by his work area,
but didn't have any responsibility
so we just hung out by him and enjoyed the cooler breezes coming through!

Daddy showed Taylor the oversized boxing gloves from one of the inflatables,
and the kids ran all over the place,
enjoying the "downtime" and the outdoors!

Then the storm basically went around us,
so when the wind died down enough
we got the go-ahead to reinflate,
and Daddy got to work for about 45 minutes.

He had a really fun inflatable,
where two people stood in line,
and then went "head-to-head"
by being harnassed to a bungee cord,
and running as FAST as they could,
trying to be the first to reach a velcro-ball,
before their bungee cord pulled them back onto their bottoms!

It was hilarious to watch,
and it brought out the PE teacher and Coach that Greg is SO gifted with!
Very fun!

When Daddy was done
we went over to the temp tattoo booth (also free)
and got a patriotic star.
Taylor was quite excited about this!!

It was a great time,
and we left around 8:15, and headed home.
Fireworks weren't due to start until dark,
and we heard that if we'd decided to stay
we would have been in over two hours of traffic to get home anyway.

So, to keep cool, we chugged our water bottles,

And then said our goodbyes to friends from church,
and came home in time to watch a few fireworks on tv.

We had a wonderful time celebrating,
we were glad we got to be a part of our church's event,
and our kids had a blast!

We missed being in Red Lodge with the family,
but when we got home we had a surprise waiting for us,
as Auntie Anna had driven in
to spend the weekend with family!

What a wonderful surprise!