A Festive Fourth

We had a great 4th of July and have been going like crazy ever since.  Especially this past week with sunshine and warm summer temps.  It's officially against all rules to do any housework, watch any TV, or spend exorbitant amounts of time in front of a computer on days like that, ya know.

On the morning of the 4th, I finished up some sugar cookies that I made for the annual picnic with our church family.  This was my first attempt at decorating with royal icing.  The results were about as I had expected except that is took a LONG time to decorate each cookie.  If I decorate cookies like this again, I think I might be able to shave a little time off and get them done quicker, but I'm sure they will still take a while to complete.  This is the recipe/tutorial that I used in case you're interested.  I'll have to post my sugar cookie recipe sometime.  I know everyone has a recipe they prefer, and well, so do I! :)  So I'd like to share mine with you too.

Once the cookies were done, picnic things packed up, and we had ourselves ready, I loaded up the kiddos and headed downtown to the parade.  This always ends up being a highlight for my kids every year.  They love seeing all the entries walking by them.  The little miss said her favorite part of the parade was a supped up car that had fire shooting out of it's exhaust.  The little man says his favorite part was when float riders threw candy.

 

 

The little babe enjoyed the parade just like this...the entire time.  He really never moved--just sat there in his stroller peeking his eyes out from under his hood.

 

The Juneau Volunteer Marching Band
always a good performance

more peeking

My friend, Beth,

and her husband, Andy, with the Green's Creek Mine parade entry.
Andy isn't known to be much a smiler (especially in pictures), so I'm a little proud of myself for catching his smile in the picture.  Just wish the rest of the photo wasn't overexposed.  I was having a hard time keeping up with the changing light conditions with sun playing peek a boo with the clouds.

And we also got to see our favorite police officer.  A nice treat for these parade watchers.  Actually this was what our little man said was his second favorite part of the parade.  I'd say it was my favorite too.

Hope you had a fabulous 4th too!