Bluegrass babies: 4th of July

We had such a great holiday weekend, despite the weather. To start out the weekend, on this chilly Saturday morning, we decided to take a long bike ride to Broad Ripple, an area south of Carmel in Indianapolis. It is a cool spot, catering to a younger crowd. I used to go there when I was in college to visit with my friends from high school when I would come home to visit. They are adding some new restaurants to appeal to people riding bikes in the area. Anyways you can ride the Monon Trail straight south and get there on a one hour bike ride, which makes it about 10 miles from our house. Grayson was in the bike trailer and Owen was on the tandem. We rode through Carmel, right by our Farmer's Market - which is directly on the Monon Trail, and kept going for another 8 miles. The boys were enjoying new scenery and the excitement of a new adventure.

We ate at Flatwater Restaurant, right on the canal and then walked around some of the shops and enjoyed some locally made popsicles from Nicey.

Then we were ready to ride home. Grayson fell asleep in the trailer as soon as we got on the trail and Owen did a great job riding home. We noticed that the Carmel Train Depot Museum was open so we went inside and walked around. It is always fun to go in there but they have weird hours (during nap time, doesn't everyone nap?), so we don't get to go in very often.

Brad and I were exhausted from trailing children on our bikes for 20 miles. We all went home and took a nap.

The next day we were ready to celebrate with our neighbors. We planned a small block party with the neighbors in the culdesac behind our house for the night before the 4th. We did this last year and it was so much fun, but this year we invited more people to join. We even hired babysitters so the adults could have fun without chasing our kids around. Unfortunately Mother Nature was not being kind to us so our party moved into our neighbor's garage. We still had fireworks and then we sent the kids to bed. The nice thing about living so close to one another is that we put our kids to bed, set the monitors outside and would check on the kids every once in awhile. We stayed up way past my usual bedtime.

The adults were a little tired and grouchy the next morning but we made it out to the Carmel parade. No one was up for a bike ride that morning so we drove there instead.

Here is our spot on the parade route, I put out a tarp four days before the parade to ensure we had a place to watch the parade. I learned last year that people put their chairs out several days in advance and just leave them there.

Here are all the kiddos getting ready for the parade...

Don't mind Grayson's non American attire, he now chooses his own clothing and throws a major tantrum if I don't let him wear what he wants. So Batman shirt it is...

Grayson spotted Ariel after the parade and pulled me over to her so he could have his picture taken. Grayson loves characters, especially a pretty princess...

After the parade, we all needed a nap (there was a lot of napping that weekend) from the night before and everyone slept for a couple of hours. So that we could stay up late for the fireworks. Kristin and the boys drove to Indianapolis because they were flying out of our airport in the morning. We were all excited that they would get to ride bikes with us to watch the Carmel fireworks that night. We loaded up our bikes with snacks, adult beverages and glow sticks. We had quite the caravan of friends and neighbors with 8 adults and 10 kids riding together. I wish I had a picture of what it was like riding home in the pitch black on the Monon trail. It was definitely an adventure.

The following week after the 4th, Brad took the entire week off from work, to spend some time with us and get some projects around the house completed. We were so excited to show him all the fun places we go during the week while he is busy. First we took him to Connor Prairie...