The Bradley Bunch: Our Independence Day

I was going to include this as part of our vacation week but then I realized it needed a post of it's own. We had an interesting 4th! We originally had planned to leave for our trip on Sunday and meet two of Layne's siblings (and their families) in Independence, MO before heading to Nauvoo. We would have gotten there on the 4th and Independence Day in Independence would have been great. However, Layne and I both felt that we needed to stay. There wasn't one particular reason, just a lot of little things put together. Anywho, we decided not to travel on Sunday and to wait until Monday morning and just head straight to Nauvoo.

Our ward has an annual 4th of July breakfast so we decided to go to that before heading out of town. We loaded up everything in the van then Layne followed in the car with their bikes because there was no room in the van. We had a great time at the breakfast. The kids didn't eat much but they spent about 2 hours playing at the park which was fantastic for getting some wiggles out for our long drive. At the end of the picnic we had our traditional bike parade. I wish I had decorated their bikes but I just didn't have time with everything that was going on. I did make hairbows for the girls which you can see in the pictures. They were fun to make and very easy. I'll definitely make more - they are very inexpensive! I did dress the kids up in red, white and blue too. I meant to have someone take a family picture but it didn't happen. Oh well!

After the bike parade we took the car back to the house (just a few minutes out of our way) then we were on our way. We left later than we had hoped but it was worth it. Unfortunately our progress was much slower than we had hoped. Our goal for the first day was to get to Indianapolis. We made it there but it was much later than we had expected. We had more stops than I had counted on and they lasted longer than I had hoped. We had planned to get to Indianapolis around dinnertime so that we could swim at the hotel and catch the fireworks. We pulled into our hotel (thanks for working your Priceline magic Grammie!) at 10:45. Yikes. The kids had quick baths and went to bed. James was wired but eventually everyone settled down.

Indianapolis sets off a big fireworks display downtown that can be seen for miles around. We were hoping to watch it from our hotel but instead we ended up watching from the van. Luckily the land is so flat that we caught most of the show. It was really an awesome experience. Thanks to some research I had done at home I knew what radio station would be playing the music to accompany the show. It was a good show and it was straight in front of us. The neatest part for me, however, was the fact that as we drove down the interstate countless fireworks went off on both sides of the road. I'm sure people were shooting them off all night but it really seemed like every one was just for us because the timing was just perfect. I really don't think we went more than a minute without seeing a firework for the last 30 minutes of our drive. Just when we were getting close to our hotel and thought we wouldn't see anymore there was a big one off to the left. It was so neat to see not only the orchestrated display of the city but also the little bursts of patriotism all along the way.

We are so very grateful to live here in the USA. I have already shared some thoughts and quotes about how I feel about our wonderful country. I'm also grateful to live here at this time and I'm grateful that my kids are living in a time and place where so many options lie before them.

Now, on to the pictures! Our new camera showed up on Saturday just before we left. Unfortunately it took me a while to learn about it's settings and features so some of these pictures aren't that great. We let the kids be in charge of our old camera so we have some great pictures from them. And some interesting ones too!

Before Leaving the House
(James did NOT want to have his picture taken.)