Happy Fourth!

We had a really nice 4th, starting with a parade. It had been raining in the morning, but was done by the time we went to the parade at 10:30, which actually made it kind of nice since it wasn't raining but also wasn't hot. Ryder liked the parade, though next year we're going to have to get there early to get front row seats so that he can get all the goodies they pass out. He didn't care too much this year, though toward the end he was wondering why he was only getting a few of the things and by next year I think he will definitely care! After the parade, we went over to Carmelfest, which is Carmel's 4th of July celebration. They had lots of carnival food, three stages of music, carnival games, craft booths, etc. We walked around, watched an animal show at the kids' stage and ate some yummy treats. We went back at night to see the fireworks, which Ryder had been talking about for months. After finally locating what seemed to be a good spot (which is kind of hard when it's your first year there), we had a little picnic as the sky darkened. Ryder wasn't crazy about the fact that people kept setting off random fireworks throughout the evening. According to Ryder, "Ryder likes little fireworks and sparkle fireworks and plain fireworks. Ryder no like bang fireworks. Mommy and Daddy like bang fireworks. Ryder just like little fireworks." Because they were random, we couldn't keep his ears covered, so he didn't like it very much. He liked the firework show better since he sat on my lap and I covered his ears the whole time. Since it wasn't so loud, he really enjoyed watching the show. The next night he even told us that we should all get our shoes on and get in the car so that we could go see fireworks again!