Lou Belle: First Fourth Of July!!

**WARNING** Tons of Pics!

This year was Channing's first Fourth of July and boy oh boy did she have a BLAST! We left Friday after work and made the trip out to Kaufman, TX. Shelby's parents live in Kaufman and have a beautiful house and the perfect land to celebrate the fourth. Everyone except for Ife and Bari met Friday evening at the Sloan's house and ate an amazing dinner called Italian Chicken. I really don't know how it was made but all I can say is that it was awesome or 'the bomb' as Shelby described it when she was telling me what her mom (Raleen) was going to make!

Saturday the girls went to Canton and the boys did tons of 'boy things'. They fished, shot guns, golfed, swam and then took naps in front of ESPN and that's how we found them when we got back from Canton. I asked Chandler if that's what Heaven would look like to him and he said yes! It was also Channing's first trip to Canton and she did great! It was cloudy and although warm it was almost as perfect as it could be in July!! We didn't end up with anything except food items... yeah, that's how we roll! That night we had another great dinner and played Mad Gab. It was so funny and we had such a great time!

Sunday was the FOURTH OF JULY! Bari and Ife came out after breakfast and we promptly started the fourth celebration! We swam and ate and listened to music and relaxed ALL DAY LONG! It was the best way to celebrate! We all cleaned up and got ready for dinner. Tim (Shelby's dad) then got Bari and Chandler to shoot the 'Elephant Gun'. It was a crazy gun and the guy s can explain it to you later because I don't really know the story behind it. We ate dinner and then the guys put on the most AMAZING fireworks show ever... again part of Chandler's Heaven scenario! It really was a lot of fun. Channing did AMAZING this weekend. She is the best traveler and can adapt to any place we take her. She loves all of her 'aunts' and 'uncles' and she is sad we don't get to see them more.

I think this fourth might be a tradition now. We are now waiting on Ty (Tami and Bryson's little one), to make his debut and we can't wait for Channing to have a little friend around sooner than later! We LOVE our friends like they are family and we wouldn't have it any other way!

A special thank you to Tim and Raleen who graciously opened their house to four couples and a baby for the weekend! You have a beautiful home and we had the best time! We felt so at home the whole time and we can't thank you enough for that!

Now; enjoy the pictures of the festivities!