once again, it has been awhile since my blog has been updated since we have been busy bees around here! let’s go back a few weeks to the 4th of july! we had a fun-filled and busy weekend. we started celebrating saturday, july 3rd with the banner elk parade. we walked from our house to downtown (it’s less than a mile) and i loved watching all the people, animals, cars and floats go by! i waved at many of them and they threw out lots of candy and beads. 
later that evening, we met some friends who were camping with many of their family members in closeby roan mountain, tn. we had a delicious dinner, played a little cornhole, threw some rocks in the creek and roasted marshmallows by the campfire. once the older kids started playing with the firecrackers, i was ready to leave. i was not a fan of the loudness this year.
on sunday, daddy had my kiddie pool all set up on the deck for me so i had a wonderful afternoon outside splashing around.
on the evening of the fourth, we went to grandfather country club for their famous fireworks show. they have a beach area on their lake and i enjoyed taking my shoes off and running around in the sand. i was not having so much fun once the fireworks began though. they were right above us and very loud and i was pretty scared. i covered my eyes the entire show, even though mommy and daddy told me i should have been covering my ears and using my eyes to see the pretty fireworks. maybe next year i won’t mind the noise so much since i will be 4!
a few days after the fourth, grandma and grandpa arrived from iowa for a 10 day visit. mommy went to the beach for a long weekend with her friends and uncle steve arrived so we had a nice weekend with the lavelle side of the family in the nc mountains. i hitched a ride with grandma and grandpa in their car back to iowa. i will be spending a couple weeks up there without mommy and daddy until they make the drive up for fair week the beginning of august. 
