Hermiston for July 4th

The greatest thing that has happened to us since we moved to Oregon is that my sister Emily and her family moved to Hermiston, only 3.5 hours away. Why is this so great? Because I love having family nearby. And it also means that since two of us live in Oregon, so many more are bound to come and visit.

Case in point: for the Fourth of July we met my sister Laura's family at Emily's house. Laura drove her 12 passenger van with 7 kids so we could all celebrate together. Because the place to be for the Fourth of July is Hermiston, Oregon, didn't you know?

Nayeli was dressed up so cute

Teddy (2 months), Nayeli (2 yrs), Gabe (2 yrs)

With my sweeties

That morning we went to a parade in a small town nearby. I love small town parades because they throw candy and everyone gets to be in it. My kind of environment.

Emily had bought all kinds of fun accessories for the kids to wear. Nayeli wore her sunglasses upside down the whole time, even after Emily tried to correct how she was wearing them. Don't get in the way of this girl's style, I tell ya.

Can't you see what a rousing parade this was? Ha ha.

We then went to a small carnival in the park. Nayeli and Ben made this flower pot at a Home Depot booth.

This picture makes me laugh every time I see it. This is my sister Emily in a booth trying to catch money. Can you see her face? She was in heaven with money swirling around her :) She later told me she could have gotten more but she felt bad for the old man running the booth. Apparently they were losing too much money and had to close it down soon after Emily finished.

Laura's family arrived later that day and we went to a different carnival. Then we went back to Emily's to relax.

Precious (and mischevious) Gabe :)

Doesn't this picture epitomize a carefree childhood? Love it.

Nayeli with Adaline and Eleanor. We lit off fireworks before we watched them be shot off.

Saturday was so fun to hang out all together. We went and picked blueberries first.

We then went to swim in the Columbia River a little bit.

Ben's river selfie

Nayeli crawled into bed with me. I have so many memories of crawling into bed with my mom that this picture makes me happy. Even though I got kicked all night :)

The rest of the day was spent enjoying time with Emily and Laura's families. It'd been so long since we had been with so much family... we loved it.

Sunday we went to church with Emily and Darren then packed up and headed home. We found our new favorite stop on the way- the Bonneville Dam. It's along the Columbia and has a fish hatchery, salmon ladders, and large Sturgeon swimming in tanks. It was awesome.

See Nayeli? All smiles. We had a great time and had Emily and Laura's families both follow us into Portland for some fun at our house for a few days.