Fantastic Fourth

We started out the excitement of the day just after midnight, when we received a text message from Aaron (Corey's brother here in town) saying that their baby girl had just arrived! Yep, little Emery Vail is a 4th of July baby, and every year there will be fireworks on her birthday...so cool! In the morning we went to breakfast for our Ward, then headed to the hospital to visit the newest member of the Reitz family. Aaron and Meagan are such cute, proud new parents. It is so sweet to see how the miracle of a baby being born can add such depth and purpose to life. It will be so fun to be near them as she grows, as we don't have any other cousins nearby! Congrats to you both, we are SO happy for you! Asher didn't like the hospital visit at all, and he refused to look normal in any of the pictures...grimacing, scowling...making sure we knew exactly how he felt about being there. All he wanted to do was ride the elevator (imagine that).

Beautiful new mama and baby!

Proud new daddy

Check out that face Asher is pulling. Is it really that bad?

In the evening we headed over to the Tracey's for a bbq. The kids all ate and played and the adults ate, talked and played a little Blongo (that game with two balls on a rope being tossed onto a three tierd stand). Corey and I did win one round! Yeah! Asher had a blast playing with all those kids, and eating popsickles. He still has blue streaks running down his arms. Who knew popsickles stained skin?

Asher and Sidney eating popsickles, before the blue stains permeated his skin!

Afterwards, we followed the Peterson fam to Rio Rancho to catch the fireworks. Besides the ones at Disney World last month, Asher hadn't really seen any. He has been talking about them for days though, so we knew he'd like it this year. Once they started, he was in awe and really loved it. Who doesn't love fireworks? They always make me think of growing up and sitting on a huge blanket with my family, oooohhing and aaahhhing at every one. Remember those days? I love that I get to repeat great memories with a family of my own.

We tagged along with the Peterson family to see fireworks.

Asher staring in wonder at the fireworks. Somehow the setting I had my camera on ended up giving us these crazy psychedelic squiggles in the pics!

Happy 4th of July. What a great country we live in!