The Fourth

Our Fourth of July festivities were spread out over more than a week this year. Mequon's parade and fireworks are always held the weekend before the Fourth, which is fine when Fourth of July falls on, say, a Tuesday. When Fourth of July is on the weekend, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. But we did attend the Mequon festivities last weekend. Elsa really enjoyed the parade, which was over an hour long and included lots of fire engines, flying candy, and other goodies. (Surprisingly, they don't have the traditional group of little kids on patriotically-decorated bikes, so Elsa watched instead of participating, but she enjoyed it nonetheless. My thinking is, if Mequon did have little kids on bikes in its parade, there would be nobody left to serve as spectators.) That same night, we tried to go to Mequon's fireworks, but it started to rain and we had to leave. Elsa was extremely disappointed, so we promised we would find some other fireworks on the Fourth itself.

So, we ended up in Whitefish Bay on the night of the Fourth. They have their fireworks at Klode Park, which is a beautiful little park right on the lake, but little is the key word here. We arrived more than 90 minutes before the fireworks started and still couldn't find a decent seat. This was problematic since we didn't know exactly where they would be shot off, and our view ended up half-obscured by trees. But Elsa loved the fireworks anyway. Claire was surprisingly good, just hanging out in her carseat and wide awake during most of the wait, so we had a very nice time just hanging out together as a family. We got Jimmy John's and had a picnic dinner while we waited.

Opa and Grandma H. had a cookout the next day, so Elsa got to spend that afternoon playing with Karina. Opa bought a bean-bag-toss game to entertain them, and plenty of bubbles were on hand, as usual.

Katie and Claire:

Karina gives Claire a kiss:

Elsa and Daddy chow down on some corn: