Independence Day.

family reunion post continue...

the fourth of july for the past...hmmmmm to many years to count have been spent at my parents house. conveniently the whipple family reunion is over the week of our country's birthday. every year we wake up at 7am to run/walk the Butte to Butte then head back to the house from exhaustion for a big brunch made by my mama. then we swim. eat. sleep. talk. until dinner, every year we have a delish BBQ.

on your mark, get set, go:

oh and did i mention that mr. surprised me! i was feeling so guilty leaving him behind to work while i had all sorts of fun at the reunion. guess i shouldn't have felt so guilty after all BECAUSE my sneaky little mr. had this whole surprise on the wraps and purchased a plane ticket and showed up at the starting line of the race and came out of no where and BOOM there was my mr. WHAT!

he officially punked me, is it weird that i'm shocked he pulled it off. i don't meant that as a diss either. it's because i'm a snoop and always seems to figure these kind of things out. bravo mr. you got me good.

Eli getting in the zone. 

uncle mike wanted the "yellow truck" photo...but where did the truck go? 

Best Cousins already! 

after dinner i realized that our entire family was all together. something thats becoming rare nowadays. so i forced the sibs and rents to gather for a photo in our WHIPPLE reunion shirts.

 then we have a program, this year we had the parents talk about family history aka share a story/ memories...who doesn't love to hear about life back in the day. it was great to hear about our grandparents and the reunions before our time. then i passed around some scotchies -- drowsy and all.

pippa got more love and attention then she could ever ask for that week. 

pippa wasn't to excited about the fireworks either. at least she had her sweatshirt to keep her warm.

 then we experienced fireworks. literally right up in the smoke and all. i'm pretty sure i may die of lung cancer from that night. the men were like boys loving "blowing things up". all the women went inside with anxiety over the fact that we thought the house would blow into frames at any given moment.

just smoke. so much smoke. i wasn't kidding. 

then we topped the night off with strawberry shortcake for desert. phew, are you tired yet? cause i sure was after that day. sometimes being exhausted is a good thing when it comes to hanging out with your cousins.