4th of July weekend

We have had a busy, jam packed with fun weekend. Thursday, we had our friends the Mettlers over for supper, then Neil helped Matt on his siding project for a few hours. Neil's cousin and his 17 month old son have been living with us for the past few weeks and Josh wanted to go golfing so I told him Hunter could stay with us and him and Kynlie had a blast playing in the sandbox together.

Kynlie and Hunter playing in the sandbox

Friday afternoon, we loaded up the kids, rounded up grandma and poppy and headed to Dickinson, ND for their fair.  My dad pulled our camper over and we parked it at my cousin's house to stay in out there. Friday evening we went to the rodeo, which was fun except all Kynlie wanted to do was walk up and down the bleachers so I didn't get to enjoy it much. I ended up taking her down in front of the bleachers to play in the dirt for a while so she would just sit still! My brother Jordan showed up right at the end of the rodeo to spend the rest of the weekend with us.

He had just started his new teaching job in Sheridan, WY at a girl's school and when we asked him how his first day of school went, he laughed and said, "Good, I spent the day fly fishing and playing dodge ball!" I think he is going to enjoy his new job!

Saturday morning, my sister ran the 10K run in Dickinson, placing second in her age group and third overall in the women. Congrats Gina!!! She and mom came back after the run and we loaded up and went to the parade. Dickinson has an amazing parade, lasted around 2 hours! After the parade we went to the Arts Roundup on the DSU campus and ate, then walked around and looked at the vendors.

Lincoln, Kynlie and Matthew waiting for the parade

Kynlie has decided she is ready to walk now. She has been able to since the beginning of June, she just doesn't want to. She wants to walk everywhere, only if she has someone's finger to hold on to. She has even took Matthew's hand because she thought he would take her where she wanted to go. At my cousin's house, she would just take off from someone and walk to the toybox or whatever she wanted.

Kynlie walking to mommy

Jordan, Kynlie, poppy and Thadd watching the parade

After we ate, we went out to Thadd and Tracie's and got dad's pickup and the camper and took off to Bismarck. We parked the pickup at Walmart- our campground of choice- and went to the Dakota Zoo. The zoo had been closed all summer due to the flooding in Bismarck but they opened on July 1 so we added that to our plans for the weekend. We rented two wagons, which we didn't need to do but thought we'd rather have too much space instead of not enough. Matthew pushed a wagon most of the time, he didn't even care if anyone was in it!

Lincoln, Kynlie and Matthew at Dakota Zoo

After the zoo, we ate at Texas Roadhouse then went to mom & dad's hotel room to shower, then went back to Walmart to go to bed. Matthew thought it was great that we were sleeping at Walmart! The kids were so pooped from all our activities that they slept in until 10am Sunday morning! I went to pick mom, dad and Jordan up at their hotel because we had taken the vehicle back to Walmart and was surprised when I got there that Jordan's wife Ashley was there. She had decided after getting rained out of the hayfield that she was going to join us for the rest of the weekend. It was great to see her. We got everyone fed and ready to go to our next adventure.

Kynlie and Lincoln enjoying a snack at the waterpark

We went to Raging Rivers Waterpark in Mandan for the rest of our Sunday. The weather was perfect to be in the water and we all had a blast. They have a great kiddie area with a wading pool, some small slides and some things that spray lots of water everywhere. They have a river that you can float around the park on and some fun adult slides. We spent the whole day there, even having the two little kiddo's take a nap there.

Grandma and Poppy got both babies to sleep and got them
laid down, it was so cute!

After the little kids woke up from their naps, we were back on the road to Dickinson. Neil's cousin has an amazing band and they were playing at the street dance so Gina, Jordan, Ashley and I went down to watch them. Jordan and Ashely saw a lot of their old college friends there and Grandma and Poppy stayed back with the kids.

Matthew, Jordan, Ashley, Gina, Lincoln, Kynlie and I  at
Raging Rivers in Mandan, ND.
Grandma and Poppy were there too but declined to have their picture taken!

We hung out at Thadd's house Monday morning waiting for the final event of our weekend. Neil was in the demolition derby that afternoon. We got all packed up and headed to the derby. Matthew was super excited to watch Uncle Neil and got a little more excited when he asked Neil what color his car was and Neil told him it was red, just like Lightening McQueen! Neil won his heat and got third place in the Grand Finale! Congratulations Neil, we are so proud of you! It was a hot and dirty day but the kids had a blast playing in the dirt and they were all very well behaved for how long our weekend was. Matthew and Kynlie rode home with Neil and some of his pit crew so it was a quiet drive for Gina and I with only Lincoln and he was so tired that he was sleeping by time we got to the gas station to fill up!

Just as we were getting home, Neil's mom stopped by and said that they were lighting off fireworks at Neil's brother's house if we wanted to go. We both just wanted to crash at home, but Neil's dad has just got back from another two week hunting trip and Neil really wanted to see him so we showered and went out there to visit.

Today, we are just trying to get caught up, it is 11:30 and Kynlie is still sleeping, I haven't done anything but this blog post today, but have a lot I need to get going on!

We had a great 4th weekend, I hope all of you did too!