4th of July Weekend - Updated

When I sat down to put this post together, I honestly couldn't remember what we did at the start of the long weekend.  I had to look through our pictures to remind myself.   Yes, things have been pretty non-stop around here for a few weeks.

Here it is: the 4th of July Weekend in pictures.

On Saturday we spent the day as a family in Santa Barbara.  The main attraction was the awesome butterfly exhibit at the Natural History Museum.  The kids' school has an insect theme for the summer, so they are particularly interested in butterflies, caterpillars, and ladybugs these days.  After the butterflies, the kids really got into the exhibits too.  It was a little too much taxidermy for me, but a cool interactive learning experience for them.

It's usually a battle to take Ashagre's picture.  On this occasion, he
chose the location and the pose and requested the picture.

Introducing...Elsa's new sunglasses!  Her old ones are still with us, but
seem to be in a state of multiple pieces more often than is practical so
she picked out this new glamorous pair on Saturday.

You can't live in southern California and not visit the beach on a long weekend.  Unfortunately, we only packed snacks and not a lunch and everyone seemed to get hungry just as the sun finally burned through the coastal fog.  It was still plenty warm to play in the waves though.  Ashagre took them on like they were his personal enemy; kicking them as the rolled in and venturing further and further out to prove they couldn't knock him down (and that he was as brave as the bigger boys playing near us).  The waves pushed him around a bit and reminded him that the ocean is a pretty powerful force, but I think he left feeling pretty triumphant.  Elsa ran into a classmate and had her own moment of triumph when she battled her fear of interaction (picture her turning her back and refusing to acknowledge her friend's approach and friendly greeting) by first parallel playing in the waves near her school friend (with lots of encouragement and support from mommy and daddy) and finally running off to build sand castles with her.

In the afternoon, after our customary post-beach burger I managed to get the kids in the bath, oiled up and in front of the computer for a little down time and a good thorough hair detangling.  Brent got a few hours with the waves, his surfboard, and his bros.

On Monday it was all about the barbecue.  We started out at our place with some of our friends from our days on Catalina Island - Uncle Mikey (or Micky as the kids like to call him), Ron and JJ.  We then moved on to a friend's house on the hill above ours for a better view of the fireworks below.  By 10, when the fireworks were over and we said our goodbyes we had some pretty pooped kiddos on our hands.

Burning some energy and cooling off with the sprinkler under the trampoline.

Things got really fun when Brent mounted the sprinkler over the
trampoline like a big shower, but it was too hard to get a picture of the chaos.

Shucking corn for dinner.

Elsa may have a little crush on Uncle Micky - he's pretty
irresistible.

Ice cream to top off yet another amazing meal orchestrated
by Brent.

There are more pictures from the second barbecue and the fireworks show, but JJ took them and I'll have to wait to get them from her before I put them up.  She just kicked off an epic, west coast National Park road trip, so be patient.

Update: Here are JJ's pictures from the second barbecue.  Thanks JJ!