An Old-Fashoned Fourth!!

This year our little village of Bagdad decided to have the theme "An Old Fashoned Fourth" for all of our 4th of July festivities and we really had a whole bunch of small-town fun!!!! You see, usually, Morgan's company doles out about $25,000.00 to pay a company to come into Bagdad with all thier hoopla and run a huge gala for us. There are usually blow-up slides, games, a huge carnival, free money, etc. But this year, with the lay-off and the scary economy, the company let the town run their own show. Pretty much, they just called up the mormons and asked them to do it cause they knew they would anyways! I am just kidding, sort of! The Baptists were helping a lot too... so give it up for the religious folks in Bagdad. We had a lot of fun though, and truly had an "Old Fashoned 4th".

Events included: Parade, boot races, 4k, watermellon eating contest, strong man contest, tug-of-war, swimming, water games, free games in the gym, food done by our volunteer Fire Department, (you could "volunteer" to pay them for the food, or not...), pie throwing, and dancing in the street (which truly was done in the street in front of Bashas).

My older sister came and visited us on the 3rd of July as she was "passing through" on her way home from Las Vegas and I wish I had pictures of that. They really loved being here and we had a wonderful dinner and visit. They all wanted to stay, but we only had room in our car for one extra kid and they couldn't decide who that would be, so they all went home. Maybe next time... if we get the 12-passanger van we want!

Here are some of my Cub Scouts right before the parade began, and no, it wasn't a heavy flag to carry, my son is a bit of a drama queen... or king, or something.

My handsome hubby under the tree we dubbed "the mormon hang-out" since we Mormons always find a nice tree to hide under and there were a lot of ward members sweating together under that tree.

Cassidy rode her bike in the parade. She decorated it all by herself and she was so proud of herself and so sad when she didn't when the bike decorating contest... especially because there was only one other bike entered. She quoted "it's not fair" a lot after that!

My darling Sarah just sitting quietly watching the parade roll by!

My goofy boys!!!

Here is Will with all the candy he collected during the parade. This year he was smart and brought his truck to help hold it all! he was pretty proud of his huge stash and his siblings were pretty jealous as well!