4th of July

We had a great Fourth of July! My parents were able to come down again this year and we had lots of fun with them during the long weekend and more posts of that will come but for now here's our celebration of the Fourth:

(Be sure to watch the last two videos in this post!!!)

Like the past two years, we participated in Stayton's 4th of July parade.
Travis starts up the old 1937 John Deere Model A tractor that pulls us all in the trailer.






Avery actually gave me one nice smiling picture.


Carson, on the other hand, didn't want to look at me, until finally I caught this quick glance after which he even said, "There! I looked at you!" (now leave me alone!)


He refused to look again, but did make faces.


A little Avery smirk.


Julie was so cute showing Emmett how she could wave her flag out the side too.




Emmett showed off his flossing skills with some of the floss he stole from the hand outs we were giving. We gave candy too, of course!


After the parade we went to Travis' parents' for bbq and blowing stuff up!


My father-in-law has had the larger of these two cannons for years now and we shoot it every 4th and at New Year's. The smaller one he just finished making himself! He turned solid brass into the cannon and made the stand from a chunk of solid oak.


And this was its first firing! (So everyone was behind the vehicles and I came far over to the side so I could peak around for this shot) It was a much deeper boom than any of us were expecting.


The boys went to collect the steaming clump of newspaper shot.


But the increased oxygen to the glowing embers from Avery's run made it burst into flame.


Brave Avery took care of it no problem.


Sparklers!


Roman candles


Take cover! This was Avery's very silly idea but they all took it very seriously.


Watch out for the big bad dump truck that shoots sparks.


A second shooting of the little cannon. Both cannons were lit at the same time but big one went off seconds before the little one and the rapid fire of my camera didn't catch it. The cannon's are tricky to get, but I did get a better shot than this one of the big cannon last year.


Throughout the evening, Travis and Kevin spent time in the shop creating extra bangs for our enjoyment. This was the first one...


It popped, but less impressively than expected. Back to the shop to fix the mixture...


The second try was a complete dud. Some problem with the fuse likely.


Now for the third attempt...


This one was much better...


And the final one...


Even bigger. And we decided that would be enough before we attracted attention...


Megan having fun with a crackle whip. I was bummed that the whip we gave Avery ended up firing basically all at once so I only got one bad shot of him in the instant they went off instead of getting any pictures of him running with it like my favorite from last year.


This was one of Megan's friends who dropped her whip at the end and looked like she was doing a jig as she had to sort of leap around it.


Eventually we shot the mortars too.






Hope you had a happy Fourth!