We had a good one this year! And hope you did too!
I got to thoroughly enjoy the meaning of a paid holiday for the first time since starting my career this year and let me tell you, it was fabulous.  The day didn't quite go as I had envisioned with my sleep-deprivation-induced superhuman thoughts...but we made the attempt, and we lived to talk about the memories of the day. (Unfortunately, I mean that more literally than not with the not-so-little scare we had that day.)

But first, a little snapshot from Reese's preschool parade...although I told her at drop-off that we would be back for the parade, she didn't know we were there to watch and her little squeal of excitement was almost too much to handle...

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And so it began, our annual tradition of starting our day at the Farragut 4th of July Parade...let's just say my body is still recovering from the damage of carrying 3 lawn chairs, a diaper bag packed with 2 hours of distractions for impatient littles, and a 21-pound little himself, all uphill both ways of course.
Sleep deprivation gives you crazy superhuman ideas!

 (His favorite part was the waving!)

We did a quick recovery at home base before venturing out again, this time headed downtown for our second annual tradition, the Rubber Duck Races.  We are big fans of the downtown area and spend lots of our weekends and my weeks off in and around that area...definitely one of my favorite things about living here.

The races were highly anticipated as Reese had been asking when we were going to the races for weeks! And every day she would say, "But I've already been waiting for 7 hours!" I love her concept, or lack thereof, of time.

We owned 8 of these 30,000 little rubber ducks...but no such luck this year.

And one from last year. 

This year was especially hard not having Daddy here and him being in Afghanistan during an American holiday. 

We can't wait to squeeze him tight!