Ice and Ice Cream on the 4th of July

We had a cook-out on July 4th, the day after the fireworks show.

Why did we not think of the idea earlier to feed the kids outside? Like the day before when everyone was here and it was a madhouse at dinner? It was so peaceful inside and they were so happy outside

 

Natalie, Emma and Luke had set up a store in the basement and wanted some buyers to go to their store. Jeff was a good sport and went down to see what it was all about.

Rebecca soon joined in the fun walking around the store to see what she might want to buy.

Sales clerk Natalie helped her find just the item she was looking for.

Emma used her calculator (with the help of her fingers) to add up the totals.

I love how Jeff got down to Luke's level as he was being checked out and having his purchases bagged up.

Rebecca is signing the charge slip. Look at all the sales Natalie had rung up that day (all those sticky notes stuck to the edge of the table). Let's just say I had done a lot of shopping earlier in the day.

Natalie was Miss Super Bagger as she grabbed the plastic sack by the handles and whipped it through the air to get it to open and then she had the merchandise in the bag in no time.

Every customer had to shop at least three times to make sure each of the three clerks got a chance to be "the dinger." Luke got the hang of dinging each item, but Emma stepped in for an intervention at his table when she heard him charging customers just one dollar. She felt that was outrageously cheap and computed a much higher amount.
Who knew an unused bag of ice thrown out on the dead lawn would be such a hit with the children?

They loved walking through the ice and throwing chunks of ice out into the street.

 They even thought they could go out in the street when they saw me standing in the street taking pictures of them.

It soon became a whole family activity.

Luke and Emma were anxious to show Sarah the wasp's nest they found under our mailbox. 

 The grandkids all love going up to sit on Roger's rock.

After the ice walking/throwing, we ate homemade ice cream.

Yummy way to finish off the 4th of July holiday.