4th of July

We had a wonderful 4th of July. We took Emma to the parade in the morning. The Woodlands isn't that big and so the parade was kinda lacking but it was fun for Emma to watch the firetrucks. We were at the end of the parade route and so the bands had pooped out by the time they got to us and weren't playing anymore. Part way through we had had our fill and started to leave. Emma wanted to turn back. I thought she wanted to go back and see the rest of the parade. I thought it was so cute that she was enjoying it that much. It turns out that she saw a piece of trash on the side walk and wanted to throw it out. I should have know. She lives for trash and garbage cans.

Next we went swimming at the Rob Flemming Pool. It has a big play structure that periodically dumps water on you in mass quantities. I refused to go near the thing. Aaron was a better sport and took Emma on it. He then shielded her from most of the water. It also has a lazy river that we floated down. I thought Emma would like it more than she did. Looking back on it, since it didn't have stairs or buttons, it makes sense that it wasn't a huge hit.

That evening we went to a friends house for a BBQ. That was the hit with Emma. We broke so many rules that it was shear joy for her. It was about 97 degrees outside so my energy and interest in enforcing anything was totally shot. I was moving at the same rate as a 3-toed sloth. So Emma had about 1/8th of a watermelon for dinner and a few bites of corn. She got to run wild through the street without having to hold either parent's hand. Our friends live on a cul-de-sac and we BBQed on the front driveway and the kids just ran amuck there. At one point Emma wandered over to the neighbors house (who was also participating in the BBQ) and went into their house. Aaron had to go fish her out. Emma also got to eat a chocolate cupcake which involved 1 part frosting and 1 part cupcake. By the time the cupcake crumbled into pieces she got 1/2 the cake and all of the frosting. Then we lost track of time and didn't leave until it was almost 9pm - 1.5 hours past her bed time and she still needed a bath since she was covered in watermelon juice. Life was good for her until the next day when it all caught up with her. Even then, I paid the price more than her.

We got a new camera lens and Aaron was testing it out. Emma caught on and wanted Aaron to take her picture and this was her pose: