Our Awesome 4th of July Celebration!

We had a fantastic Fourth of July Weekend! It was packed full of food, family, and one adventure after the next! We were so sad to see it end.....

We started Independence Day off right by making red/white and blue chocolate covered strawberries! Austin didn't help much but he LOVED licking the chocolate bowl!

He wanted to eat one so badly! It was hard for all of us to hold off until the BBQ later that night.

Later that morning we had a fun visit from our cousins that live in West Jordan! Aunt Tammy got quite a few adorable smiles out of Miss Evelyne :).

Austin loved Cousin Anna and had to show her every single toy he owned! The house was a huge mess after that....

Cousin Lara was quite taken with this chubby baby doll :).

After the cousins left, we went over to Sadie's place for our next party! Briana and her boyfriend were there, along with Sadie's boyfriend and his parents. It was a blast!

The BBQ was excellent. We had so much of it that I forgot to take the chocolate covered strawberries out of the fridge! I was so sad when I realized we hadn't eaten them and we were already stuffed :(.

Aunt Sadie bought Austin all sorts of fireworks and we had lots of fun lighting them off! This picture was taken right before Sadie burned her hand on the sparkler..... kinda ironic since she is a firefighter ;).

After the feast, everyone went swimming! I put Eve's feet in but that was enough for her! She screamed like I had murdered her! So we spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out in the shade and watching all the action.

LOVES!

Daddy and Austin doing tricks in the pool.

Eventually Eve fell asleep. I'm guessing the intense Nevada heat had something to do with that....

Aunt Briana had fun trying to give Austin swim lessons and showing off "her baby" to her boyfriend.

Fireworks!

Austin had never seen fireworks before. The Pop-Its were a big hit!

Playing with Sparklers. It would have been a lot more fun if it were dark.

Mommy helping Austin find more Pop-its to throw.

The next day we went on a mini-vacation to the Mirage Hotel! It was exhausting but so much fun! The kids did great and we were surprised by how smoothly all our plans went! The only true rough patch was trying to get Austin to go to sleep at night since we were all sharing a hotel room.... After two hours he finally gave up.

Off to the Secret Garden to see the animals!

Watching the dolphins!

Austin was totally captivated by them.

Part of the dolphin exhibit was under ground....

.... and the other part was outside!

Watching the dolphin trainers work their magic.

Austin was most excited about the dolphin that played basketball ;).

It was so awesome that we had a close up view of everything going on!

Daddy pointing out the action!

After the dolphins, we walked over to the tigers, lions, and panthers!

These were the cats that Siegfried and Roy used before their retirement.

This picture has a story.... That lion back there was eying Austin like he was a big cheeseburger and Austin knew it! For the life of us, we could not get that kid to look away from the Lion for one second! They just sat there, locking eyes and neither would look away.....smart kid ;).

Eve did great just hanging out in the stroller while we toured around! Perfect baby status.

The first time we went, it was super hot and all the cats were sleeping. But when we came back later that night after it had rained, they were all on the prowl! There was more than one moment when I found myself wondering how strong those fences were....

Austin was obsessed with this grass lion! It took a lot of coaxing to get him to leave!

We skipped nap time since we were having so much fun, but both kids found a moment to pass out anyway (Austin in the stroller and Eve on my lap). It was nice letting them sleep while we lounged in the shade and had about 30 minutes of adult conversation.

Austin as he was starting to fall asleep....

The garden was beautiful, but dang it was hot! We were all melting and couldn't wait to go to the pool next!

Before we hit the pool, we decided to cool off indoors with some ice cream! As you can see, it was a hit!

I wish we had gotten pictures at the pool but we didn't want to bring our phones and risk losing them. We weren't there for long because it suddenly started raining but the hour we got was great fun! Daddy took Austin under the waterfall over and over again until Austin was shaking from the cold. He threw a fit when I made him get out of the pool but I didn't like seeing him so cold and didn't want to risk him getting sick! So we lounged out in the sun for a while on the lounge chairs and relaxed. It was heaven I tell you!

Once the rain started to get heavier we headed indoors and ordered room service for dinner. It was so nice to shower, have our food delivered to us, and relax together. It had been such a fun packed day, we were exhausted! Sadly, I think Austin was overly exhausted because he suddenly got all this psycho energy right at bed time. He was zooming around the room and we couldn't stop him! We tried for two straight hours to get him to calm down until Daddy finally got mad and then Austin instantly went to sleep! I wished he had done that sooner.....

The next morning we packed up and headed for home, sad that our vacation was over. Austin, however, was excited to go home and was very happy to see all his toys once he got there. He likes to go out and do things, but he truly is a home body. This Fourth of July was definitely one to remember!