We left Tennessee and headed for Missouri a little sun-worn and sleepy, but luckily, it was our shortest leg of the journey at about 6 hours.  We drove through Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois and then Missouri, and every one of those states looked almost identical, as they were all covered in corn fields :).

We were so excited to finally arrive at Kevin's brother Brian's house.  It was so great to see them, and they not only had dinner waiting for us, but surprised the kids with a trip to a Fourth of July carnival.  We quickly headed out to have some fun.  (I love this picture of Lily and her Aunt Rachel walking to the carnival.  I cannot even begin to describe how excited Lily was.)

Our first order of business was to get Lily a ride on the Ferris Wheel.  She has been dreaming of riding one for a few years now, and so we bought tickets and headed out to to fulfill her dream – even if it was on a rickety old ferris wheel – she didn't mind :).

 
We all had a great time, that is until it started letting people off, which meant we were stopped at the very top.  It was then that it hit me that there were no safety straps and the door to our car kept swinging open.  Even with the death grip Kevin had on Derek, I started hyperventilating just thinking about my little boy diving out of our car. 

Thank goodness he survived, and soon we were off so they could ride the merry-go-round.  They also got to play in the bouncy houses and eat cotton candy.  It was a perfect night :).

The next morning we went with them to church, but before we headed out, Lily just ha to get a picture Brian and their pet dog, Dobson.  He is a sweetheart, and although he spent a lot of the time we were there hiding under the table from Derek, he did like posing for his picture.  He looked straight at the camera every time :).

We continued our Fourth of July celebration after church with a BBQ and some amazing red, white, and blue cheesecake that Rachel made especially for us.  It was divine!

Then it was time to load up on bug spray and play with fireworks . . .

We started with poppers and sparklers . . .

And then we moved on to the real deal.  Brian put on quite the awesome show, complete with parachute men.  His grand finale was awesome, as probably 50 parachute men came shooting out of the thing!  The kids loved it, and so did we.

Then I got the kids tucked into bed while us adults stayed up to watch the city fireworks from lawn chairs in Brian's yard.  It was perfect :). But even though we stayed up pretty late, the next morning we left super early to get a good start on our longest leg of the trip.  Driving from Missouri to Colorado . . .