Land of the Free

And who says that the future of America doesn't look bright? Looks great to me! Especially when we head down to Eagar--just seeing all these awesome families in red, white and blue shirts, hair bows, dog collars, chairs, pants, and umbrellas all getting together and cheering on our great land is enough to say, "Aw, stuff it Obama!" or maybe something even more patriotic like, "Pass the watermelon!" I don't know, but it's a great feeling nontheless.











This float had to be the best in the parade (Although for a small town parade it always has some pretty great floats). The head of the statue of Liberty would go down, and we all thought it had fallen off or broken. Then, all of a sudden, right on cue to Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA," the head would rise up like a ressurection from the dead and the shocked crowd would erupt into cheers. Ye-ah baby!

Here's our beautiful bunch.

And here's Corey and Kari's beautiful bunch--I always knew Kari was a woman after my own heart--yeah for matching shirts!

We love waiting for the parade to start....

Okay, so this post is actually backwards in time--these pictures are from the Friday before the 4th. We were just hanging out on the front lawn laughing at the babies when Corey decided to throw them all in the wheel barrel together--well, he didn't really THROW them--he's much more careful than that--it was more like a toss. J/K! They had a blast going up the hill--things weren't as fun when we finally took the wheelbarrow away, but alas, the plight of a babe!




Then the older kids came out and entertained us with a play they had thrown together in the basement--there was a lot of throwing going on that day--Please do not ask me what the play was about, but it WAS entertaining! Especially KJ's shirt.

How cute is this picture? No, really, how cute is it? I just can't decide.

Whew! You're doing well if you have read this far. Last event here. So, the MORNING of the Friday before the 4th, Jack and I decided to run the 5K that Eagar does. The big kids decided they would do the mile race, and we even convinced Jacob to join us on the ride to Eagar the night before. It was really fun and we all got medals! I even won first place among all the women! Of course, considering the fact that all the good runners were actually in the 10K and there were only 4 or 5 women in the race, it really isn't that much to brag about, but here I am bragging about it nontheless. Jack has more to brag about really, because he won 2nd place overall and 1st in his age group--and his time was almost ten minutes faster than mine! Jacob made us both a little jealous though because, despite the fact that he NEVER goes running, he got in two minutes behind Jack. The kids all had fun with their run as well--Sunny actually got second place! It was a good way to start the day and a fun challenge with a GINORMOUS hill and thin air. (It was different than last year Jennie, we went up a SUPER STEEP hill at the beginning--wish you were here to run with me.:))

We're hoping to get more Whitings to join us next year and start a tradition. Well, that sums up our celebrations this weekend--what a great land we live in!!!