What a great weekend! We’re a great, crazy bunch. Here’s how the weekend went:
I at some raspberries. Fresh from my mom’s bushes.
We played some cards and ate some yummy food.
We hung around and waited for the fireworks to start (there were 30 of us watching the fireworks).
They were bright.
And a little crazy.
And beautiful.
All these photos taken by me. On my honor. With help from this tutorial.
There were babies.
Adorable, very photogenic babies.
Such cute babies.
There was some intense cardboard boat building.
Some intense boat racing.
A huge crowd to cheer on the boaters.
We don’t actually know who the people in the real boats are. Apparently they thought racing cardboard boats was an oddity worth watching.
There were some prizes. My team won the titanic award. We literally went down in flames.
There was the charity auction. My sleep mask brought in $55. The bottle of Oliver wine that I donated at the last minute brought in $70! The total donation from the auction? $5,600!!!!
And because we’re not fun enough… we had a pinata too!
Whew. I’m exhausted. Click over to the flickr set for more photos.
All Buttoned Up 
Thanks for sharing your awesome pictures. Love ya!
Nicole how come we didnt take a picture of the titanic award (loser award) that YOU won in the boat bragada race. How many years in a row is this… Five? For a small fee I can be on your team next year to gaurentee you a winning trophy. Love you– MOm.
The fireworks shots are AMAZING! Looks like you have fabulously wonderful time!
Wow, those firework shots kick ass! And how awesome that your sleep mask thingy got so much at the auction. But $70 for a bottle of Oliver Winery wine? Erk. I hope the winner wasn’t too disappointed when they popped that puppy open.
Fabulous photos, and it looks like you guys had a great time! But I second chemgrrl, I can’t believe someone paid $70 for Oliver wine when your mask fetched $55… your knitting was worth way more than the wine, for sure!
Wow! Thanks for sharing that with all of us! Your 4th is really a fun thing 🙂 We also do something together every year at the lake my grampa has lived on his whole life…he turned 95 this year on July 4 so we had a big family reunion birthday bash this year. Was so much fun on the lake, and I never thought to photograph the fireworks!!! Thanks a million for that link 🙂
oh nicole…
such a LOVELY post! your pictures are so in the moment. so patriotic. SO AMAZING. reading your updates has been the hi-light of my day:)
lots of love!
lauren
Oh my god, those pictures of fireworks are AMAZING!! My birthday is on July 4th and I would LOVE to be able to take such fantastical shots myself.