(Sunday Snapshot) a Red, White and Blue long weekend

 

It was one of those gloriously long holiday weekends.

 

(iphone collage)

 

 Fun with friends...with swimming and relaxing at Devil's Lake.

 We celebrated with a parade, sparklers, fireworks and playing outside until it was dark.

 

And a neighborhood get together with yummy food,
 playing games and a lot of mosquito bites thrown in there
for good measure
(and they were worth it).

Hope yours was a fun one!!

27/52 and Favorite Photo Friday - a low key 4th

{A small hometown Midwest July 4th}

Low key is a good word to describe our July 4th,
no traveling near or far, just hangin' out at home in the a.c....
except for when we were out in the 104 degree temps to watch a parade.

These two were armed and ready with bags for C A N D Y.
Yes, candy was their mission for the day.
My mission was to keep all of us hydrated and capture a few photos.
I have to say I was impressed that there wasn't a whole lot of complaining about the heat.

After lunch we made our way to the pool for an afternoon of swimming
and playing in the water. (Those photos for my next post).

 

Evening time was the sparkler show.

Quite a few local fireworks displays were cancelled due to the extreme heat and drought
but we managed to do our own thing and have fun.

Hope everyone had a safe and happy 4th!

Camera settings for the sparkler photos -
50mm 1.4 lens
F/1.8
1/100 sec.
ISO 1250

It's a slower shutter speed than I would have liked and you can see a little movement
but I still loved them.

fun on the 4th

We had a fabulous and festive July 4th.

It started on the 3rd with a cookout with friends and that dinner with our 2 families

turned into a neighborhood get together!

We truly have the best neighbors who are dear friends.

On the 4th we continued with our tradition of attending a charming local small town parade.

I think the best part for Grace and Will was getting candy.

Both  of them don't like the big professional fireworks displays...TOO loud!

So we had our own low key celebration with sparklers and then some other small fireworks Dan set off.

You would have never known that Will had surgery 5 days before except for the bandage on his nose.

He's doing awesome!