4th of July with fellow Americans and a couple brits.

Another 4th far away from America... but another great year with friends, lots of red/white/blue and fireworks... and thanks for my friend Meredith we had an awesome "American song" play list.

Just love tradition... and remembering that Freedom is not Free.

The past few months Pierce has learned how to dribble a ball... he is so proud of his accomplishment.

 

He can even shoot...his height finally pays off.

 

Here is the honorary grandparent... Asher loves Mr. Greg and his glasses.

 

 

 

 

A great group making more memories.

 

 

 

The kids even got to make homemade ice cream again (in a plastic bag)

A little sweaty... 

The big boys were in charge of setting up the fire works... last year we did them one at a time and got in trouble... so this year we wanted to set them all up and give it one big go... better to ask for forgiveness than permission RIGHT?

It was a great show... that's me and Asher at the bottom... I was holding his ears tight... he was not so sure about what was going on.

4th of July in Korea...

4th of July is always a lot of fun but also a good reminder to our family how thankful we are to be Americans.  Although we have been out of America now going on 5 years we are so thankful and proud to carry an American passport and know that we have a country to call home.  We just love Red, White and Blue and got a group of friends together (some from America and some from other countries) to celebrate!

Here is a picture of Pierce and Kate (I think Kate has filled in the role of Violet in Singapore... these two are cute together).

Where the party happened... at X block in the foreigners compound.  A great place for the kids to play, a BBQ pit for grilling and some seating for the adults.

The men in charge... but I think my man just did a lot of talking and he was like the dog of the party... he ate the hotdogs that fell off the grill so they would not go to waste... :-)

Pierce meeting a new friend (this family just got here last week and this boy will be in Pierce's class next year).

He found some pom poms... oh no... Daddy told him to put those down... 

 

Meredith the hostess with the mostess had her mom here with her and she is a principal and had the great idea to let the kids make their own ice cream... how was this going to work... well it did... not sure of all the ingredients really but put some sugar, vanilla and milk in a small ziploc which then goes into a larger ziploc that has ice and lots of salt and the kids shake shake shake and throw and throw and within 5 min you have homemade ice cream... and it tasted so good... it really worked.  Here Pierce and Andrew are tossing their bag... 

 

Now time for the "roasting of marshmallows"... And Pierce was happy to leave on his helmet bc he would eat and then go riding... come and eat a bit and then off again.  He always wanted to be ready for the action and downhill scooting.

It is dark now and it was time for the fireworks... Mr. Graham gave everyone the rules of fireworks... it was a serious moment. :-)

Even a team agreement that they understood... now we are ready.

Everyone got a sparkler... several sparklers... 

 

Even the moms... man look at that belly... this is the only blue or red shirt dress that somewhat still covered my body... buy wow... that is a belly... 

First Roman candle of the night... wonder what the security guards are going to say...

And the grand finale put them over the edge... we got cut off from fireworks after this one... but it was worth it.. the boys lined the fence with roman candles and lit them all... 

All the adults with sparklers... Pierce was the photographer but he cut me out of the picture on the right... oh well it is probably best that way... but you can see my sparkler :-)

And Blake was getting brave... at first he was hesitant on getting the fireworks going (we were not sure if we were allowed to do them) but towards the end he was getting into it... so he loaded a bottle full of like 50 sparklers and lit them all on fire... after it singed his arm hair in about 1.5 seconds this is where the bottle ended up... not such a great idea babe.

Another great night with new friends... Happy 4th everyone!

Happy Birthday America - 2010!

...


Another great year in Singapore celebrating the 4th of July... a great piece of the story this year was that this year we went with our great friends/neighbors the Cowdy's which happen to be English and as we were entering the fairgrounds the eldest 2 daughters were asking me what we were explaining... and I said our "independence" and then they said "from whom"... and then I said "from you"... you can imagine how the rest of the night went... GREAT... it was raining but we did not let that stop the fun...

See the mud everywhere... Here is Blake trying to coral the children. Violets parents were out of town so she stayed the night with us... and brought her along for the festivities... we all had a great time but Violet did not like getting dirty.

I made Pierce hug Violet... oh he was not in the mood... but good boy for listening... and the blue mouth was from the cotton candy.

Pierce best bud... Alex and his daddy. And as soon as Pierce saw Alex on his daddy guess where Pierce had to be... on his daddy's shoulders too.

After that... we had to dance... front and center.

Alex's sisters... Rihana and Olivia.

We finally found a seat away from the mud... on top of the speakers... I hope all the ear drums are ok....

Not sure if you can tell the boys are having a blast and Violet seemed a bit skeptical... I stayed close to her the whole night.. but stay tuned to see if she joined in soon... what do you think?

Here she is... making her big debut... Violet took center stage and had a blast...all she needed was a microphone.

Now everyone has seemed to settle down but Violet is still going strong.

All the kids waited patiently for the fireworks... with the rain and all we were not sure... but it turned out to be a great night full of rain, laughter, food, candy and fireworks.

When we first arrived to the park Alex was saying how he wanted to see the loud fireworks and Pierce got a little nervous and made me promise him that we would see the quiet ones. So I told him that Alex could watch the loud ones while P and I watch the quiet ones (covering our ears). He seemed to be ok with my answer but he was worried all night leading up to them... every 10 min he would pull on my shirt and ask "are the quiet ones coming yet"... so cute but I could tell he was a bit nervous. As soon as they were about to start... I asked P if he wanted to cover his ears and instead he ran to his daddy to be put on his shoulders... there was nothing quiet about these fireworks but P seemed to be fine... Violet not so much... she clung to me so tightly and I covered her ears.

That night before going to bed... we got one more hug...Happy Birthday America.