Red, White & Boom

Our fourth of July celebration started Thursday at the Red, White and Boom in downtown Rock Island. Ron and Tricia made it down and we all met Becky, Jake and Levi. Hallie and Reese were so excited to find their friends Elli and Jess there!! The kids got to play on the "jumpy" air toys (Reese was climbing this slide like a champ!!) for a while and then we headed back to my mom's condo to watch the fireworks over the river.

Friday, Hallie was in the Bettendorf parade. We headed down early and got seats for everyone {Dad and Jessie joined in the fun from here...} Hallie did a great job and Reese enjoyed watching the parade.

Next event... the Fishing Derby. This year the kids {and Papas} caught a bunch of fish! Everyone had a fun afternoon fishing and eating lunch! We met the Wagners (Elli and Jess) again. We were EXAUSTED so we all split and headed home for naps. We met back up for supper at Olive Garden and then headed to find a spot for the Bettendorf fireworks. The fireworks were really good!

The fun didn't stop there...

Saturday we had a BBQ lunch here. After lunch we started making homemade icecream!! YUM! The recipe I had (from PSL) didn't freeze very well, so it took us ALL afternoon to get it hard. Becky had a fun icecream ball that we all rolled around to make icecream. Then the kids had a waterballoon fight, did some fireworks, and ate watermelon! After supper we went back out and did sparklers. The night didn't end until about 1am after several games of Sequence :)

Thanks to everyone who came to spend the weekend with us... it was such a fun time!!