"The 4th" part II

Saturday's weather was quite out of the ordinary for the 4th but it wasn't totally a washout and the sun even came out for the evening festivities.

Saturday was packed full of fun activities for the kids and us adults. We started with the parade at 10 and there was definitely some drizzle, but that didn't stop the kids from leaving the shelter of the minivan to grab the candy.

After another huge meal, and some inside activities, we went back to Main St. for the bathtub races. I had no idea what these bathtub races were but turned out to be quite a good time. Dave was trying to talk me in to "getting a team together" ...uh, no thanks. Anyway, here are some pics of the action. Our cousin TJ and his brave wife were part of the action. Pretty much you had to maneuver a cart carrying the bathtub and person down the street, through some cones and back while trying not to spill too much water out of the bathtub and while trying to avoid the water balloons that are boing thrown your way from the crowd on both sides of the street. It was timed and the water depth was measured after each race. It was pretty entertaining.

After the bathtub races came the duck races. We "bought" a duck to race in the race. The water was flushed down the street causing a small stream along the curb. The ducks were sent down the stream and obviously the first duck at the end of the street won. It was pretty fun to watch until we spotted our duck #1333 floating down the street in about 75th place. After the real races, all the kids got to pick out a duck and there were 10 $5 winners. Lucky Patrick was one of the winners and boy was he excited.


The sun finally came out and we grabbed a bunch of food and went up to the park to grill out with more of the family and to go to the stockcar races.
Lauren was telling greatgrandma that they were going to go to the park instead of the races. I don't think greatgrandma could even hear what she was instructing her to do so she just kept smiling and giggling. :)

I lied when I said I had about 200 photos....there are actually 317 pics so believe me I am trying to keep the number posted to a minimum. Here are just a few other random ones that don't need an explanation with them...