Blogging Through the Alphabet (Favorites Edition) ~ J is for July 4th Traditions

With the exception of a few years in my entire lifetime, we have spent the 4th of July the same way. We attend our town's celebration at the park where kids and adults participate in frog and turtle races, egg races, sack races, egg tosses and water balloon tosses. This event has been happening at the park for over 100 years. It is an incredibly meaningful and fun tradition!

Although we claim to go for the kids, the main events always seem to be the adult three-legged race and egg toss. Most of my family got in on the action this year.

Collin smoked us all for the blue ribbon.

Collin won first and Kyndal, somehow, won third!

Brynne got second in her heat of the sack race, but fell in the finals.

This was an intense race, and so fun!

Dawson and his friend won first in the three-legged race; Kyndal and I won third.

Brynne and her friend won third place in the egg toss.

Eli didn't put enough power behind his throw.

Rick and I always have a lot of fun competing together.

This year we additionally enjoyed spending time with Collin's parents. Our 4th of July traditions have forever been changed with the addition of Collin to our family. His birthday is on the 4th of July and Collin's parents came to spend the day with us. We are so happy they will be joining our family!

After we leave the park we continue to celebrate the 4th either with friends or family. This year we headed to my parents' house at the lake to spend time with my family, including my brother, sister-in-law and niece, Bell, who just got back from their 6 month trip to South America. Bell is one Spanish-speaking cutie!!

Eli and Brynne were excited to get in the water, although they spent the majority of their time trying to throw each other off the dock.

We came back home in time to go back to the park for the city fireworks display. It was a great show and a great way to end a really fun day!

The 4th holiday is one of our favorite family days of the whole year. I look forward to it every year and it never ceases to deliver a bang of a good time!