The Great West Coast Tour - Day Sixteen - 4th of July in Solvang

We started out with a relaxed morning, packing up and watching a beloved childhood movie.

They loved this movie when they were children, and Monkey discovered it tucked in with the other 500 movies our hotel had to rent from.

We were so happy to have Nathan, Frances, and the boys get to town. We moved over to the same hotel they were staying in, which made popping out to the pool and making our plans for outings easy.

We headed out to find the hat store that was open and had a hat for Buster.

Much rejoicing.

Now everyone has a hat.

Nathan had told us how wonderful and quaint the Solvang 4th of July Parade was, and it did not disappoint.

The two funniest moments were when we thought the parade was over, but it turns out it was just really, really spread out. It was like we had a slight intermission.

And then when one of the cars in the parade broke down, Frances instructed Nathan to go out and help push it off to the side. You’ll see he’s pushing with one arm, in a half-hearted manner as we all teased him from the side.

The boys had never gotten to play VR before, and our children were thrilled to make sure that changed.

Nathan and I were cracking up because Yessa was playing a farm simulator game and she was milking cows in VR, which struck us both as hilarious; Take her on vacation so she can milk cows. Nathan has said a couple times that was one of his favorite parts of the trip.

As the day wound down and we waited for the fireworks to begin, we got some time in the pool.

It was cold out for me, so I ended up wearing two shirts sometimes during the day, but oh, how I loved visiting with Frances and telling Nathan stories.

Yessa loved the bathrobes in our new hotel.

And since our room faced the Mission where the fireworks would be set off, everyone gathered there for a dinner of pizza and visiting while we waited for the sparkly fun to begin.

We laughed and chatted and toasted while we watched the sky flowers erupt.

An even better day in Solvang now that our friends were here to share it with us.