fourth of july in indiana

mason went straight down for his nap when we got back to dennis and joy's and napped for almost five hours! madelyn, matt, and i all napped for about two hours after having an ice cream snack.

the real fun began after we woke up and all matt's cousins in the area and their families came over for a large dinner aunt joy had put together. dinner was amazing! joy makes the best lasagna - seriously. after we had eaten our fill we headed outside to ride on the 4x4s and check out the farm.



dennis and joy had some pretty serious wind damage - maybe a tornado - on their property the week before and matt said that madelyn started crying when she saw all the trees knocked down (i took a few pictures the next day and will share in a separate post). but madelyn could not get enough of 'riding'. i even got to join her on their newer vehicle (at least new since our last visit over one year ago) that seats 6 and has seat belts. dennis is one of papa's older brothers and their aunt alice came to dinner too. she even took a ride around the farm with madelyn. joy got alice a head scarf for the ride and when madelyn saw that, she wanted one too. instead of running back in the house, dennis took our his handkerchief and joy tied it on madelyn to match alice (pictures in the slide show below).


mason hung out on the back deck and kept everyone on their toes while he tried to walk up and down the stairs over and over and over again. mason started to lose steam as the sun started to go down but we still had fireworks to look forward to at 10. thankfully we had all had naps, mason chose a great day for a very long nap, and the time difference was working to our advantage.

mason was almost asleep when we got to the university where we were going to watch the fireworks. it was the perfect situation. we parked, sat on some grass in the parking lot, watched the fireworks, and left quite easily. there was no waiting and very little sitting in traffic - perfect. mason barely moved other than to point up at the fireworks every now and then. we weren't sure it it would be too loud for him or not. he never jumped once, but i did a few times at really loud ones - even though i knew that it was coming.

madelyn just followed nolan around like she was his shadow. nolan is matt's cousin's son and he did a great job humoring madelyn. he drove during most of her 'rides' around the farm and i think that sealed the deal for madelyn. nolan was willing to hold her hand while crossing the parking lot going to the fireworks and sit down when she would tell him to sit next to her; even though he knew that we were still trying to figure out where we were going to sit for the show. madelyn was practically pushing nolan off the blanket when we did finally sit down because she wanted to sit and lay so close to him.

it was a wonderful way to spend the fourth of july. which just reminded me - madelyn kept excitedly telling everyone that it was "america's birthday" all day. she is absolutely obsessed with american flags and can find them everywhere. sometimes i have to really look to see some small corner she might see somewhere. she just has a hawk eye for the past month or two.

here are some more pictures from our afternoon and evening on the farm. love.