Fourth of July

We had a fun fourth of July weekend. We usually like to go to our cabin in Westwood because the small little town in the Lassen National Forest has a 4th of July parade downtown. They have floats and throw candy to the kids. I LOVE it! They also have a blue grass festival with snowmobile racing on the grass. How great is that. Plus the shake shop and the lake is to die for. However, driving 5 hours in the car with two crying kids did not appeal to me so we decided to stick around here for the weekend.

On Friday, Rick got home from work early so we headed over to Alameda and took a walk along the beach. We shopped around a bit and stopped by See's candy for some treats. We then had dinner at Applebee's. It was a hot afternoon and a perfect evening to be outside.

On Saturday we went to our friends first birthday party, it was nice to be out and visit with friends. I can't remember what we did on Saturday night????

On Sunday, Crew and I headed to church for the first time. Athen did well in the nursery however by the time sacrament came along he was a BEAR - screaming loudly through out the whole building. After church we headed down to San Jose to spend the holiday with my dad. It was HOT. We had dinner and enjoyed playing in the backyard. Athen loved playing outside. Grandpa bought Athen a basketball hoop which he loves. The boys played basketball, went swimming, and rode the Y bike. Athen also loved picking up all of grandpa's plums that fell off the plum tree and put them in the bucket. I'm sure grandpa was happy about this - less for him to pick up and throw away. I always hated this plum tree growing up for this very reason, we were always the ones who had to pick up all the rotten plums on the ground.







It was a nice warm summer night and we heard fireworks out in the front yard so we brought a blanket outside and laid down on the grass and watched the fireworks. To our surprise they were big beautiful fireworks just one street from our house. Athen liked watching the fireworks and staying up late.

Monday morning we woke up to a nice pancake breakfast with bacon, fruit and juice. Rick and the kids and I went to the mall to find Rick some new church/work shirts to go with his nice new suit. I happen to find myself a few new pairs of cute shoes as well. We then headed over to my grandma's house to show off our newest addition.
Great Grandma Oustad



We then headed back to my dad's and spent the afternoon in the backyard swimming and playing in the sun. Crew and I spent most of our time sitting under the apple and plum tree enjoying the shade while the boys swam and ran around.








We had a delicious BBQ. Rick made a homemade Jerk sauce that he got from his Men's Health magazine. Although it took many ingredients and cost a fortune to make it was delicious. We will definately make it again, especially since we now have all the ingredients. He also made some homemade gingerale soda. We had tons of food - Jerk chicken, steak, hot dogs, macaroni salad, pasta salad, watermelon, corn on the cob, chips, peanut butter cookies, and Henry Weinhardt vanilla cream soda.


Athen loved the watermelon!





It was a nice hot summer holiday weekend. I loved it.