My Fantastic Fourth of July

JUMP!!

I hope you all had an amazing Fourth of July!!! I’m sorry to be posting so late, but we just returned from camping in my MIL’s backyard. My eyes are a bit glazed over from lack of sleep. She has at least a dozen huge quaking aspen trees in her yard and with the wind blowing it was impossible to sleep. They are so noisy! Bossy came down with Taco and Burrito to spend the day, but she left last night so she could go to work early this morning. We kept the boys with us…Burrito snores almost as loud as the trees!

People were lighting off fireworks well after midnight and Curly was scared so he crawled in the sleeping bag with me and Baby Doll. The two of them kept tossing and turning and wiggling. Then my sweetie woke at dawn with a cramp in his leg…But we had lots of fun celebrating when we weren’t trying to sleep.

The cannons went off around 6:00 am and woke everybody up. The Dog Walker is trying to earn yet another Merit Badge, Backpacking this time. Part of that meant a 15-mile hike. Now I don’t think anybody in our family but the Dog Walker could walk 15 miles, but there are lots of us, so I started with him and walked the first 2 miles on Sunday, then the first 2 miles on Monday. Princess and Crafty also took their turns walking.



In between shuttling us back and forth, we were working on getting the kids ready to walk in the Children’s Parade by decorating the wagon and scooters and divvying up the Tootsie Rolls. Even though the Dog Walker knew that part of the reason for our trip was the merit badge, he packed his Vans instead of his hiking boots. After he finished the ninth mile and right before the parade he showed me his feet. Blisters everywhere! He could hardly walk.

This was a terrible situation. Remember our summer list? The Dog Walker is the one who put the Children’s Parade on it. For some strange reason he really wants to be famous. This is the third or fourth year he has worn his scout uniform in the parade and tossed candy to the kids. He tried on his dad’s shoes, but they were too small. There was no way we had time to run to Wal Mart and buy something else, besides, new shoes would be almost as bad. So he took off his shoes and walked the whole mile of the parade in his socks. I don’t think the kids cared…they only had eyes for his Tootsie Rolls.

After the parade we headed down to visit for a few minutes with Grandma. She was having one of her “good” days. Then we went geocaching! This family activity started out as a merit badge too, but now the kids think it is like treasure hunting. I had a pile of listings, but we only managed to find four before it was time to head back to my MIL’s house.


Lots of visiting and playing later, it was time for fireworks. For a small town, Mt. Pleasant puts on an amazing fireworks display! Even with the rain, we enjoyed every bit. My favorite part was all the kids singing Katy Perry's "Fireworks" song at the tops of their lungs while they were going off. Then after our restless night, we headed home late this morning and pulled in about an hour ago. I would have loved to come straight in here and update you all, but I had to help unload the van first. Got to keep my sweetie happy. I would love to hear how you all spent your holiday…hope you got a little more sleep than me. (Teach is a work now and all my pics are stuck in her fancy new camera. Check back later tonight and see all my cute pics!)