UNO MOSS: 4th of July Celebrations

For the fourth of July Esperanza came to visit!! It was SO much fun to have her here. I totally jinxed her arrival, though.We had a conversation about which airport she was flying into and about how they are never delayed...haha! NEVER have conversations like that.

EVER.

She was three and a half hours late.

All. my. fault. :)

The kids were so excited to see her. I can't even describe Lucy's excitement in words when we responded 'yes' to all of her questions, such as, "she'll sleep at our house? and play with our toys? and go to the park with us? and eat dinner with us? and go to church with us?" I think she covered every daily activity we do and got louder and more animated with every "yes" she got :) it was great.

Cole kept asking if we were going to Chastity's house on our way to the airport. But he was just as excited to see Esperanza when he realized who we were picking up!

Sadie's response when we got there was priceless. I fed Sadie while we waited for Esperanza to come out of the airport, and when Esperanza poked her head in to the car Sadie pulled off, wide eyed, and started looking around. I let her see Esperanza and she stared, wide eyed, for a second and then gave her the biggest smile ever! It was adorable. Instant love. Sadie gave Esperanza lots of smiles during her stay for which I am very grateful.

We got to watch fireworks with one of Devin's work friends, the kids were in awe. Sadie woke up and didn't cry at all. That was amazing because they were loud! We were two streets away with a perfect break in the trees so we saw EVERYTHING! The low fireworks right by the river and the high ones. It was beautiful and the finale was awesome. Lucy asked if it was over every minute as if she didn't care for them, until it was really over and then she was sad. :) And she talked EVERYONE's ear off during the fireworks. It was hilarious.

Lucy 'typing' on my NOOK.

We also went to the zoo. Some of our friends have a family pass and they got us all in for FREE! So nice of them. It was a blast. I guess its one of the biggest Zoo's in the US. I wouldn't doubt it. That place is HUGE it took us 5 hours to see almost everything, and that wasn't spending time at each exhibit either. So we'll definitely be going back so that we can see the rest and spend time at our favorite animals.

Sadie on the car ride up. Lucy took these pictures.

I think they are al cute and she did such a good job I can't delete them...so I'm putting them all on here.

Sadie and Daddy. I was so unprepared. Not enough snacks. No sunscreen, no hats, ect. ect. So Sadie now has Zoo paraphernalia :) I guess those Zoo guest shops are good for something.

Because I'm horrible at taking pictures here are pictures from the zoo on our walk out :)

The Thomas kids and our kids riding the Lie-Lie

The word Lion is not part of Cole's volcabulary in any way. Lion no matter what word it is in is always Lie-Lie. Dandelions are dandy-lie-lie's. :) He LOVED seeing the Lions at the zoo and getting to ride this one.

These are some of our new favorite friends! We have spent SO much time with them since we got here. Very grateful to have such good friends.

We had a surprise bike delivery TOO!!

(we weren't expecting them to arrive for another few days)

New bikes from Mercedes on Vimeo.

The kids LOVE their bikes. Thankfully, because Lucy had a knockoff of the Stryder bike and it didn't work like we hoped and she didn't like it. But she is already picking her feet off the ground and getting better and better at balancing while she glides. I'm amazed :)

Cole on his new bike. Oh man, this kid really likes to ride. And asks to ride two to three times a day.

Lucy on her new bike

Off they go!

We pulled out the sidewalk chalk and everyone set to drawing...I rarely get to see Devin draw. It is fun, and he is really good.

Esperanza and her garden :)
Regrettably the only picture I got of Esperanza while she was here! I really need to get better at taking pictures while family is around!