Happy Independence Day!

Happy 4th of July! No better place to be than the island. We started lining the street by Gramma's right after breakfast and nearly the whole family and many, many friends were there for the event. Along with the entire island.

Cousin K and her sis..

Uncle Tom...

First the island band (local folks who still play) starts things off with the National Anthem. Love their hats.

Then the floats start... Homemade and local folks having fun. This year, Uncle Dave brought his classic F-100 for the route. Several of the kids piled in to toss candy. Buddy decided he'd rather watch the parade than be in it, so he was content to collect a gallon of candy.

Here's the "Orange Truck" with the kids tossing us candy and water.

After they finished the route, they headed back down to our spot and we got this group photo of some of the kiddos.

Katy and Dave enjoy the sunshine and parade. Aren't they sweet!

After the parade we all head back to Gramma's for a cookout, oysters on the grill and more beach fun. Here's the kids enjoying their lunch. LG was quite entertaining for the girls. He kept calling them all his 'girlfriends' and Buddy kept trying to steal kisses. Too funny!

The boys have no idea that Katy's about to steal their burgers.

The kids had a blast playing in the sand, on the dock and watching sky divers. Which they decided to go see. They ran down to the end of the island to see the sky divers land without telling any of the adults. Thankfully they weren't gone too long for us to panic, but it was pretty funny, seeing the whole gang of kids hurry back to Gramma's acting like they had been there the whole time. Too funny! After much of the excitement the kids settled down and that's when we noticed something on the beach.

A closer view reveals LG fast asleep in the rocks, still in his life jacket.

How funny is this.... Play to you Drop!

Luckily we got him up before he sunburned.

After a very long day of visiting around the island. The sky finally darkened for some fireworks, approximately 10PM. And let M.E. tell you, no one would ever know the economy was in a slump by amount of money spent on fireworks. Nearly every house on the beach had a major fireworks show of their own. I seriously didn't know where to look first or next. They were huge, loud and everywhere along the beach. Buddy actually got alittle overwhelmed and had to go inside. LG was already in there. Too much excitement for them and they were both asleep before they were through. It was so excited and awesome. We had a really good day and great celebration. It was AWESOME!