Fourth of July

For the fourth this year, we had a busy day enjoying family time and appreciating all the opportunities our expanding family is blessed with.  The kids have been incredibly excited about America's birthday for several weeks so they woke up in a fabulous mood ready to get the day started with the golf cart parade.

There are around 120 golf carts that participate in the parade.  The parade starts at the local fire department and goes to the fish fry shack where they have watermelon, ice cream, birthday cake, lemonade and mimosas.  The fire department also has been known to turn on a hose or two at the kiddos.

Everyone decorates their cart and we went with a traditional Americana theme.

 There are a wide range of carts.  Here are pictures of some of our favorites.

God Bless the USA Saves

S.S. Smitty

Carter liked the mermaid on the front cart and Parker loved Nemo on the back - part of a Sea to Shining Sea cart duet

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness - playing Happy through the whole parade

A Shark

Animals with hats are always a hit with the boys (Parker thought this was the funniest cart)

All the carts lined up

We play around a bit before the parade started and checked out the carts and the fire trucks.

The driver apparel is as important as the cart decorations (or so Dad thinks)

Before long, and after a short speech by the mayor and a young gril singing the National Anthem, we jumped in the cart and headed down the parade route.  Parker loved waving his flag at everyone while Carter preferred to shout "Happy Birthday America".  Once at the end, the boys took full advantage of the snack offering.

And Parker got a firecracker tattoo

Soon we headed home for some pool time, lunch and naps.  Dad wasn't up for a nap today so he took a ride to the beach to check out the Salute from the Shore.  The event has several historic airplanes which fly from North Myrtle Beach to Hilton Head to commemorate the holiday.

After naps, the boys voted for mini-golf as their afternoon activity.  Carter was pretty into it.

While Parker developed an original game that was a strange combination of golf-soccer-baseball-basketball.  At the first hole he hit the ball and then threw his club and ran around the hole.  Other holes involved a combination of throwing the ball followed up by kicks and swings.  But he made it in the hole every time and yelled "I DID IT" at the end of each while wearing a huge smile.

After golf, we ate dinner at home and then headed out for more festivities.  The boys requested to stop by a few favorite island spots first so we checked out the marsh and the island boat launch.

Carter found a flag cape

We then headed to the island 4th of July Party.  The boys loved dancing to the live band,  we had one last trip for ice cream and some playtime at the park before it was time for the fireworks.

Parker was a dancing machine

He even roped in some younger college girls for a dance

The island does a pretty nice firework show and the boys enjoyed it.  Carter kept commenting that he "wasn't scared this year because he was four."  Parker won the commentary award with constant comments such as "wow", "this is neat", "that was a cool one", "my favorite color yellow", "all my favorite colors purple, yellow, green, pink", "that firework is broken.  I'll fix it (waves a stick he found).  All better."  

It is a really neat small-town type of event and day on the island.  Happy Birthday America!  What a great day!