We had a packed day on this holiday Wednesday.  We started the day by joining the cabana parade at 10am.  The boys immediately spotted Cole, and the three of them stayed together to follow behind the fire truck.  The boys periodically looked back to find and wave to us.  When the parade was over, both Logan and Connor wanted to stay in the cabana with Cole, so Stuart and I went home without them to gather our things.  We came back to the pool just in order for the National Anthem sang by a little girl and the festivities begun.  Lisa had saved us a table with umbrella, so we situated in this nice spot where we spent the next few hours.  We later found the boys, and they were having a snow cone.  We had the boys come with us and be the first to go buy burgers when the BBQ started, but then they left us to sit in their “secret spot” to enjoy their lunch.  After eating, the 3 of them agreed to play one round of the “cake walk” and next they were off to free swim.  Right before the “coin dive”, they had chosen me to be their collector, and the three of them decided to share their loots.  Cole, being a better swimmer, collected the most coins, but the three of them all brought me some coins.  Connor was very persistent and was the last to stop searching among the three.  At the end the boys had earned enough to buy themselves an ice cream treat each.  Finally after we watched the watermelon fight between the lifeguards and the dads, we were tired and ready to head home.  The boys finally said goodbye to Cole.

    After hours being outside, Stuart and I were tired and we took a nap.  But the boys were fine; they played some games and did some reading.  I did finally convince Connor to take a nap right before we had dinner.  By 8pm, we headed out; we parked our car near the trails, and hiked into the Almaden Lake Park.  The boys were interested to stop and do the exercises along the way, and we made it in the park in 25 mins.  Since last year we had some trees obstructing our view, we decided to head to a different area in the park and situated on a grassy area.  We brought some glowsticks for the boys to play until the firework began at around 9:20ish.  We had an awesome view of the firework this time with no obstruction and it was so close that we felt some ashes on our face and legs.  This was an incredible show that even the tough critic Stuart thought it was great.  We had all enjoyed the show very much and were all satisfied, then we packed up to walk back.  The length of hike was not bad at all and the boys did great walking too\][ .  Connor even sang me songs until we got back to our car.  This was a great end of a good July 4th.