Fourth of July 2012

 For the Fourth of July we decided to go to a Patriotic Band Festival in Bristol RI. I'm not sure what we expected but it turned out to be an all high school band competition. Although it was a little funny to be there we were pleased with how well the bands did, and the kids liked watching all the manuevering of the members. Afterwards there were fireworks so that was fun.
Then we camped at Bristol State Park. It was beautiful.

Raiyah slept in the "one man show" the first night Ryan bought it. He still has yet to sleep in it, and it is Raiyah's tent of choice for our camp outs. She thinks she is pretty cool to sleep in her own tent (which she is since I don't think I would sleep in my own tent, even now). 

 We attended the Bristol Parade for the 4th. This is the longest running parade in the country. It had a lot of fun things like era dressed soldiers firing guns, horses, floats, etc. The only thing it was missing was candy :) I would recommend anyone going but it was VERY long. You could be waiting for a new act to show up for about five minutes. We left before it was over, and still had been watching the parade for about 1.5hrs. Did I mention that the street is painted like this all year round to identify the parade route. And a majority of the houses are completely decked out in patriotic stuff. It felt really neat to walk through the city.

We hung out with our friends the Mease's. We have loved becoming great friends with these guys. Brandon, Lindsay, Brandon II, Ian, Easton, and Grayson

 Later that night we had a party at Chris and Kelly Thompson's house. There was shirt tiedying, sparklers, and slip and slide. Couldn't ask for a better way to spend the 4th. Oh, and I can't forget that Ryan spent the last hour and a half of the night teaching everyone how to play rugby while we waited for fireworks. He was in heaven.

I wish I could have caught it on camera: we saw our first fireflies. It was so much fun to watch. We were watching the fireworks in a glen which was surrounded by bushes, and they literally were on fire with the lights. They were everywhere. I felt like a little kid I was so giddy with excitement.