my fourth fourth with the scotts'

i love Love LOVE the fourth of july. i always liked it, but it has gotten much better the last few years. it's one of the few holiday's that we don't have to figure out. it's pretty set and standard every year. location: Sierra Vista! dave's sister kim and her family live in sierra vista, and it is the perfect setting for our families to celebrate together. the boys go golfing in the morning, so we left our house in tucson by 8:30 am, all loaded up and ready for the day. we hung out at jenna's and adam's aunt kim's house until just after lunch, when we headed to the cove. the cove has a wave pool, 2 water slides, and a huge hot tub. we love it there and it's even more fun now that jenna can enjoy it too (don't ask me how we are going to do it next year with both kids running every which way). after all our toes looked liked raisins, we headed over to the youth center for food and games.
holly is lucky enough to have a birthday on July10th, so we all get to celebrate with her each year. she requested a turtle cake... it looked okay, i guess. she liked it and that's all that i care about.
jenna was most interested in the soda and candy machines. i don't think she ate anything besides grapes and ice cream the entire time.
she did go nuts over the juice boxes. when all the kids abandoned their plates and drinks to go play, jenna found and drank all of the remaining juice. don't ask me how she didn't spill all over herself.
this is what the fourth is all about- FAMILY! the welkers were able to join us from houston, and susan and caroline came from memphis, and we are all glad they did.

grandma brought a huge supply of glow sticks this year, and the kids loved it. jenna was more interested in running away, playing in the dirt, or hugging on her cousins.
by the time the show started, we were all ready for it, glad that the thunderstorm kept it's distance. last year, i had bought earmuff style ear plugs for jenna to block out some of the noise. i had them with us this year, but we wanted to see how she did without them. for the first half she was mesmerized. she would shout, 'beautiful' or 'ka-boom' or 'wow' along with the other kids. dave's grandpa was sitting right next to us and she just kept saying, 'grandpa, look!'. it was cute. but all of a sudden she started looking scared, and she told us they were too loud. we put the earmuffs on, and she loved it! the next day she was telling everyone that the 'fireworks. loud'.

i have zillions of pictures, that i think i will include in another post.