4th of July Festivities!

This year our 4th of July festivities started on the 2nd with the parade. The neighboring town holds a parade full of candy and to our surprise lots and lots of loud fire trucks. Shaun is not really into parades but I convinced him we needed to go as a family. We met several other families from the ward there so it was a great time. The lame part was there were so many loud trucks that were just advertising their business. And the fire trucks had the sirens on at full blast. I think it took several days (literally) for my ears to stop ringing.  Claire had a blast, though. :)

 

This is her 4th of July outfit Aunt Beth and Missy picked out while they were here. She was the queen of the party! Everyone couldn't get enough of her shoes! She knew she looked cute and didn't want me to take her shoes off.

 

 

 

Packing for Rochester...Claire had to try out the cooler. It has been SO hot here!

We drove up Wednesday night to my sister's house in Rochester. Claire did not sleep any of the way, but she was really good. At one point she had thrown her Elmo out of the car seat. I told her, "I tried to get it Claire but I can't reach it." her response was, "try again." hmm, I guess I know what I say to her a lot. We got a good laugh out of it. We also would say, "Claire, are you going to take a snooze?" trying to convince her to sleep. She would put her head down, close her eyes, and then then 10 seconds later open them and start laughing, like, "I fooled you." :)

 

The 4th was great! It was rainy in the morning so we went to the community rec center and swam in the indoor pool. After lunch and nap time we took the kids over to the carnival. It was hot and muddy from the rain, but Claire was a good sport and enjoyed playing on the slides at the nearby park.

That evening we ended up watching the fireworks on TV with yummy dessert. It was a great day!

 

The reason we took this trip was for Shaun to do some side-by-side research at Cornell with a professor he met while he was in CA. This professor may have a post-doc position open in a year so Shaun wanted me to come and get a feel for the area. Mostly you do a post-doc if the job you are working toward is not going to open up for awhile. So it is somewhat of a buffer.

After being there we had a nice day, and Claire and I spent the day with the professor's wife and kids and they were great, but we both kind of felt like it wasn't for us. When decision time comes we will seriously pray about it, but for now it was good we got to go.

 

Ithaca is 2 hours past Rochester. So it was a day trip for us. Claire loved the science museum there and actually took a good nap for me. Hurray!  

 

After the men were done in the lab we went to the falls which are right below campus. It was nice to cool off. It was a very humid and hot day!

 

We drove back Friday night to Rochester. Saturday morning Shaun and I hit Wegmans and stocked up on tons of Gluten-Free stuff for Claire. Their selection is incredible.

Following the store we all went to the zoo. This is an awesome zoo and we had a great time!

That afternoon it was very hot so we got out the kiddy pool and let the kids play. We had an amazing steak dinner with grilled corn on the cob made by the grill-master, Brett. Yum!

 

 I found these purple dresses for $1 and made the matching hair bows. What a cute cousin picture! After church we had to load up and head home. It was a great weekend!

Thanks again Talbots for your great hospitality!