More pics from the 4th :)

Thought I would share our time with friends on the 4th. Our hometeacher's family invited us over to share the 4th with a large group of 40+ people! It was amazingly fun. It helped lessen the pain of being away from friends and family. I took the opportunity to take some fun pictures... but then got involved in the food and games. So there are not as many as there would have been. ;)

As soon as we got there they gave the kids bubbles to play with. My kids were in HEAVEN! Jared was so excited, he kept asking everyone "Will you play with me?" And he would not put the bubbles down for the life of him! LOL
Nathanya was so quiet and followed everyone around. It was darling, but I wish she would open up a bit more.
After dinner during games they brought out cookies. Samuel kept running for the sharp drop off area. He would also run anywhere danger was. So in the end, hoping he would doze off, I put him in his stroller. The one thing that kept him from screaming bloody murder was the cookie! Sweets can be a blessing in disguise! However, realization hits fast too - and he was not a happy camper at being duped. :( When the adults started playing Botchi (I don't know how to spell it.) I tried to keep my children in a safe place. Well, Jared made it easy by getting a time out for blowing his bubbles at people who were eating after being told not to. Nathanya, being the sweet, innocent child that she it, just quietly watched from a distance.
The game began and Brother Davis - The host of the party - made sure that anyone that could would play. It was fun to see Nathan up and enjoying the festivities. I think we are a bit hermitish... Anyway, Brother Davis was the ref at the beginning - calling the winning and loosing teams.
Some of the parents recruited their children to help their teams win! It was darling!
I personally think Nathan was relieved not to be holding a baby :) I don't blame him though. It is nice to have a break once in a while. HEHEHE
Not too shabby of a tosser either! Of coarse I am biased! I also think he is a real good looker too. Hands off gals! HE is MINE :)
The blue team did put up a good fight!
The game seemed a bit stressful at moments - it was so close!
My theory is that height may have an impact on the results. Those Blue team members were just a bit closer to the ground already. ;)
It was almost too close! - In fact, I feel that praying for your favorite player is an unfair advantage. :)
But in the end... it was the red team that came on top! Everyone had fun - and all were great sportsmen and women!
My visiting teacher and friend - Dawn, had a fantastic plan for desert. They made home made ice cream and supplied cookies for the kids to decorate. Well, my children seemed to be the ones to take over that project. Boy did they have a blast doing it too! Miriam would make cookies and bring it to different people. It was so cute to watch. Dawn - you are the best :) My kids think so too!
There was not a shortage of games. Oh no... The Davis family has an assortment of real fun games. I got to sit and enjoy a couple of them myself, shortly after taking pictures and eating of coarse! Brother Davis taught us the art of Gambling. Hehehe We all took our game very seriously. :)
Afterwards we played a game called Pow Wow. It was really fun too. After games and cleaning it was time to go to the school near one of the malls here. We took blankets and there were fun festivities there too! Of coarse - we had games to play there as well, but here were tons of people and I mostly focused on making sure I did not loose a child. But I did take pictures when I could.
Edmond loves to be held... so Dad held him and he began to stretch. He LOVES stretching... so I got it on camera.
I had to take a picture of the clown. He was blowing up balloons... and was dressed so cool! They even had jugglers and hoola hoops. A band was playing music and there was face painting too. The food was all that cost. Pretty awesome!

Nathanya got a butterfly on her cheek, Jared got fireworks, Miriam a ball of stars, and I got them to sneak some flying jets on Samuels cheek. when he realized what it was he was very proud of it.

So when all was done, we settled down to watch fireworks. The results of which you have seen some. Here are some more for you to look at if you choose. Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed the pictures. I guarantee you the experience was even better than my post. :) A wonderful Independence Day!


If you want to take some awesome pics of fireworks, the settings I used were:

Aperature was set at f/8
Shutter Speed was set at 4"
ISO was set at 100
Focal was set to infinity (looks like and 8 on its side - I have the Nikon D80 and it is the focal ring put to the very end going clockwise.)

Very important to add that these need to be done with an Tripod! Because of the Shutter Speed... you will need to do it with one or it will be blurry.