Wade's 4th Party!

my parents live next to a guy named Wade. each year he throws a huge 4th party. this was the first year that we were able to attend. it was something else.

 her is grandpa george waiting for the party to start!

each year wade has a fishing contest. he has a pond in his backyard. he stocks it with fish. you get one point per fish and minus one point if you catch his turtle or his carp. you go up against one person at a time and then the winner moves on. who ever gets to three first wins. my sister was the grand champ last year. so of course i had to enter to give her a little healthy competition. george also entered. (he's big into fishing!)

 daddy and ayla came to cheer me on.

 wade is the guy in the red shirt. we was getting the bait ready for the tournament and explaining the rules.

 aunt sara was one of the first ones up. we both wanted to use those yellow gloves as we are not that excited about touching fish or the maggot like bait we used. however in the heat of competition, there was no time for gloves. sara won her round!!

 a little later it was my turn. like i said no gloves. i was pretty proud of myself. it was neck in neck. i had a lead for a while with 2-0, but then he caught up. we both caught our third fish at the same time but he got his off the hook before i did. ;0( i was so proud of myself. i turned around thinking my boys would be standing there cheering, so proud of their mom for touching gross stuff. nope, they were on the swing set. oh well!

 grandpa george went later in the tournament, which is not that great because the fish have started to catch on and take longer. it was close but he got eliminated also.

after the tournament, wade was nice enough to let the kids fish in the pond for a bit.

 aunt sara helped cullan to catch his fish. here is is with his big catch!

 then sara started to help Kael. this was a little harder. nothing was biting any more.

 grandpa george helped briea. i was not sure how she would react, but she is no chicken. when they pulled that fish out of the water she was so excited.

 she just grabbed that fish. no fear. 

 here is the crew, still waiting to catch poor kael a fish. it took forever. luckily aunt sara was pretty patient.

 finally he got one. i think he was pretty excited. he did not want to touch it. i don't blame him. i don't like touching them either.

 after all the fishing excitement, the kids played on the swing set with uncle Jeremy.

 ok. if you have not seen these before, they are AWESOME. they were wade's little girls, but they let the boys borrow them. they had so much fun. you just wiggle the front to make them go. boy the boys got the hang of it no problem. they were zooming all over the place. 

 of course our big kid tried it too. i was having so much fun watching him wiggle around the drive way, making it go.

ayla had a fun day playing outside and watching all the activities. isn't she cute. I mean really. she just is. 

the night ended with a firework display that could rival most small towns. we were pretty sure that wade would end up in jail for it, but to our surprise not one cop showed up. it was amazing. plus the good news is that neither his house or my parents burned down from it!