July 4: Boats, BBQ & Bottle Rockets!

In celebration of the birth of our country, we visited the Center for Wooden Boats at South Lake Union and enjoyed their annual Wooden Boat Festival. Ahoy!

We boarded several vessels with huge masts, flying flags and kind crews that let us pretend to steer the ship and tour below deck. Pretty cool stuff, I'll let the pictures speak for us:

Harrison's first temporary tattoo

As we got ready to leave we came across  some fun water fountains Harrison could not resist. We let him play until his soppy diaper literally fell off from the water weight, then we called it quits!

We made our way to the Ivar's on North Lake for a nice lake side meal of fish and chips.

During nap time, mom and Auntie decided to make pineapple sorbet... we ate it 8 hours later and it was delicious!

For the prior three days, Team Fein had been talking about "Boom City,: the local reservation that sells fireworks. Grandpa was intrigued so we decided to shop there for our sparklers etc just for fun. If you've never been, it is like going to a carnival with booth after booth after booth of fireworks stands, each with someone hollering that they will make you the best deal! There are signs lining the road as you drive in that tell you "Booth #115 - Sir Booms Alot!" or "Booth #98 is mind blowing!" You can kind of see a sliver of it in the photo, behind Chyna.

Returning home, we quickly fired up the grill and enjoyed dad's hot dogs and brats, then headed over to Overlake Hospital to visit Great Papa Hugh and the family, as Great Papa was not well (he has since returned home). To make a long day even longer, we piled back into the car, drove to Bothell (where fireworks are legal) and madly ripped open our large package of explosives and furiously shot them off as it was almost 10pm, it was almost dark and Harrison was getting tired. Dad, grandpa and auntie shot off bottle rockets, fountains, etc. while Harrison sat in mom's lap and happily threw snaps at the asphalt.

It was pretty dark so these are the best photos. Chyna said it was the most fun 4th she had ever had! Every year it occurs to me that July 4, 2008 was the day we told our families that we were expecting Harrison to debut 30 week later. Three years have past already and were so much fun. We love you little dude!