Fourth of July Fun

For the Fourth of July, we registered the three older kids in the Greensboro Fun Fourth race through downtown. The boys ran the 1-mile race and Olivia did the 5k. 

They were giving out some silly swag at some of the booths, so Ezra went nuts. 

There werent many kids in the 1-mile race, but Ezra managed to come in third.

Gabe wasn't very far behind, taking 5th. 

Olivia, however, seemed to be a bit out of shape from the long break since spring training and came in pretty late.

She was given a bit of a hard time for not being able to catch the octogenarian who came in before her.

It wasn't all about the races, tho. We did our traditional gathering with other families down at the Grim's farm in Pleasant Garden.

The paper lanterns are one of the highlights of the evening.

And of course, the fireworks!

July 4th

This year, we wanted to see some big, professional fireworks, but still wanted to go to our friends' farm in Pleasant Garden like we've done for the past couple of years. So we compromised and went to a Greensboro Grasshoppers game on July 3rd so we could teach the kids about baseball and get to see the fireworks after the game.

 They had a lot of fun cheering for the Hoppers, who beat the Asheville Tourists pretty handily, 12-4. There were some tense moments early when the Tourists hit 3-straight home runs, but the Hoppers had a 9-run 6th inning to put the Tourists away for good.

 We were sitting in the second row along the first base line, which happened to be where the pitchers for the Tourists sat along the wall. This allowed Emma and Irene to get up close and see the players.

 Emma spotted the little knob-thing on top of their hats and kept reaching over to poke it on a player's head until the usher came down to send them back to their seats. The Tourist player never even looked up at who was poking him. :)

 One convenience of sitting in the section we did was that we were close to the playground for when the kids got a little bored with the game. 

 At the end of the evening, it started to rain, and while it was heavy enough that I didn't want to pull the camera out, it wasn't heavy enough for them to stop the fireworks. It was a big, non-stop display that was practically right over our heads. The kids all loved it!

They've asked if we can make the baseball game a family tradition from now on. We'll have to see... :)

Colorado 2014 - July 4th

If there's anyone who does the 4th of July right, it's the Beckers. They go all out every year with food, games, decorating and dressing up. This year was no exception. 

 The food was over the top!

 Everyone dressed in red, white and blue.

 We played a couple games of volleyball.

 The kids had a potato sack race.

 They walked on "stilts".

 One of the big highlights was digging through the sawdust pile to find prizes and coins.

There was a piñata filled with candy for the kids to work out their aggression on.

 They did a scavenger hunt.

 And to cap the day off, they decorated their bicycles and rode in their own parade, led by Dave in his blue Nissan Z.

Everyone had such a wonderful day celebrating the birth of our great nation. It will be hard to come up with something to do next year if we aren't out there with them.