4th of July Weekend

For the long weekend, we drove up to the Charlotte, NC area to visit my friend Anna, her hubbie Matt, and their new (oops - already 6 months old!!) baby, Julianna. Anna and Matt took us to a good old fashioned 4th of July parade in Waxhaw, SC.

Waiting for the parade to start. Anna's nieces were very sweet and shared their chairs and toys with Delia. Matt had brought his truck to the parade route to stake out our spot early that morning. Some people had staked their claim the night before! We began to think this might be a big deal...

Me and Anna! Buddies since jr. high and college roommates!

Baby Julianna and Matt having a blast!

Mmmmm, sno cones make everybody happy.

Especially blue ones - unless you're a baby.

Delia was not wild about the loud stuff - fire engines and police sirens - but she was entertained by everything else.

Fancy cars,

funny hats,

old cars,

uh, Shriners on go carts (??)...

and even Uncle Sam!

Even though the parade was precious and small-town, there were a TON of people lining the streets.

After the parade, Matt's sister and her family invited us back to their house for a cookout with ribs and all the fixins! Delia had a good time playing with the girls and their big playhouse/swingset.

They even let Delia borrow a bikini so she could play in their little pool. Does anyone know where we can get a wading pool this late in the summer? WalMart and Lowe's have put them up already.

After we finished off some homemade Oreo ice cream, we headed back into Waxhaw for their fireworks show. Who knew Waxhaw was such a happening place?? There were families in folding chairs and on blankets everywhere.

Delia was a little spooked by the loud fireworks at first, but by the end of the show, she was clapping for them.

These are our fun friends Lynna and Jesse that we met in Arizona. I used to work with Jess at Blufish AZ. Now he has a sweet design job where he can work from home, and Lynna is at the top of her class in law school at UNC Charlotte. They invited us to another cookout at Lynna's brother's house. This just happened to be the last night of our summer gypsy dinner tour: Grady and I realized that we had eaten 6 home-cooked dinners in a row, none of which were cooked by us.

They had extra long sparklers that wouldn't burn your fingers, so Delia tried out a few and liked them!

Then we went down to the end of the street and shot off boxes and boxes of fireworks, which are illegal in NC, but readily available right across the state line. Good times!