4th of July and More

cousins Noah, Jonathan, Ethan

I've got to catch up here. We had such a fun 4th of July; however, we grabbed the old broken camera (which I keep on hand for Ben to play with) and so I didn't get ANY pictures of our festivities. My cousin let me take some with hers so when she emails them I'll post them. Anyway, we got up and did our chores, packed up and went to our neighboring town's parade.


I have realized that the parade actually isn't an amazing parade in that there are really very few floats. It's mainly 1,407 emergency vehicles with sirens blaring and unsung heroes in fancy cars and local business owners in some kind of truck. There are a few marching bands and cheerleaders etc. too. They all throw candy which is always fun and then after the parade part there's about an hours worth of huge trucks with huge tanks of water that come spray everyone they possibly can and then it turns into one big huge community water fight. Good times. We just love it. The water part got cut short this year due to some poor boy who fell off one of the trucks and got his leg run over.


It's just so much fun to sit and feel part of a community and visit with great company (two of my uncles and aunts and their families and my cousin and her family) and watch our kids love every minute. They had some of that yellow caution tape up in an attempt to keep the kids from going into the street. All of the kids went right under the tape and happily scrambled for candy. I noticed that Anna was a solitary figure behind the tape reaching for the rare piece of candy that got past the wall of kids way in front of her and then if she did she would give it to one of the littler kids who she felt bad for even though they were all getting plenty. We finally convinced her to get out there, but it about killed her. We heard ourselves saying all the wrong things, "Anna, just do it, everyone else is doing it." "Quit giving all of it away". Great parenting.


After the parade we went home for a little downtime. Bren and Ben napped, the other kids played, and I watched 2 more episodes of the "John Adams" series by HBO. So good! I love Abigail Adams, she is definitely one of my heroes and why I've always loved that name. I highly recommend the mini-series which I know has been released to buy on DVD, but not sure if you can rent it yet.

After our nice mellow time we went to a nearby park with some of our extended family. We cooked burgers and hotdogs, had some yummy sides and played and chatted a very pleasant evening away. When darkness set in Brennan and my uncle Mike hosted our own firework show which got really exciting when Brennan lit a fountain type firework to distract the onlookers while he lit and then threw at them a flower type firework (you know those ones that spin and fly all over). I think one sort of singed Tavin's (one of my cousins) shorts and maybe burnt his leg a tiny bit. Always good fun with Brennan. Ben wouldn't let me get him within about 200 yards of any type of firework. We enjoyed the display from a very safe distance. They finished just in time to watch the nearby amusement park firework display. Even though poor little Ben was completely spent by the time we got him home around 10:30, it was such a fun day and night. It's just a great family holiday and it always reminds me how blessed we are to live in this country. We love America!!!

Saturday we kind of lazed around and then put the house back together. Brennan and I went out with our good friends, the Beechers who are sadly moving away soon. We'll miss them so much.

Sunday we had a nice quiet day and after Church my parents came over for dinner. We always love having them and the kids were thrilled since they think the three weeks we don't go over to Grandpa and Grandma's for Sunday dinner is the most tragic thing EVER.

Today Anna had her first book club. She invited a couple of friends and had them each read one of her favorite Nancy Drew books. After having to postpone several times they finally met today. They were so cute because there were just three of these really good friends but they were being really formal and serious about it all. They discussed the book for quite some time and then I served dessert. They felt very grown up and it was so cute.

Lize, Abe and Belle came over too and I couldn't resist taking this picture. Oh she's so cute!