Bad Blogger

I seem to have gotten into the habit of not blogging lately. :) Shame one me!

This past Friday evening we drove to my parents for the weekend. They had their annual 4th of July Celebration on Saturday. They BBQ and have a bunch of friends and family over in the afternoon and then we always have a big fireworks display in the evening. So Saturday was a pretty busy day. My dad and I taking Drew up to the firework stand after breakfast to pick out some snap-pops, smoke bombs, snakes and the coolest parachuets -- they had little army men on them that had moveable arms and legs. The rest of the morning was spent getting everything ready...setting up tables and chairs...and EZ-Up canopies (since it was raining off and on)...starting the cooking. Noon brought my Dad starting the BBQ and mom finishing up the cooking while I put table clothes on and various other things to get ready. At about 2pm people started arriving and my brother ran up to meet my Uncle Bob for their annual firework shopping. These two are VERY serious about fireworks!! I was kicking myself afterwards for not getting pictures of the HUGE ones they buy...they go ALL OUT! I think we had about 16 adults, 6 teenagers and 4 little kids/babies - a little smaller group than usual. The rest of the afternoon was spent sitting and chatting, eatting, & volleyball. As the sun set, the fireworks started. Awesome as usual. I had fun trying to capture them with my new camera. Ok, here are a few pictures from the day:
Drew and the daughter of some friends (he almost 4, her just couple months past 2) enjoyed playing all day. Here she was chasing him - while others play volleyball in the background)
Another chunk of the group sitting and chatting.
Drew with some of his snakes.
Fireworks!!
One of the fountains fell over when the canon next to it fired. Thankfully it was pointed off to the side!

The weekend also brough me getting to meet my nephew for the first time!! He is SUCH a cutie!! Pretty serious most the time just taking it all in with cute chubby cheeks and big BLUE eyes. Drew was pretty excited about getting to meet him for the first time too :)
Better shot of his pretty BLUE eyes!
Look how HUGE Zach is next to him! Zach is 6 months and 2 days older.

Sunday we got up and packed to come home and then went to see John's grandma before heading back. We took her out for lunch and then she had birthday gifts for the boys since we probably won't be back in the area before their birthdays. It was a nice visit and good to see that her arm wasn't in a sling anymore nor in a cast. She said it had a hairline fracture, but the doctor said it would just stiffen up in a sling.
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Back home it is time to deal with our ailing airconditioner. Friday, before we left time, it stopped blowing cool air. It froze up on us again! We go through this every year... it probably should be replaced, but John says it is just cheaper to pay them to come refill the freon every year. I'm just worried we are going to fight with this for the next couple of years only to have to replace it before we sell it. So a friend from church who works for a a/c repairman is suppose to come by tonight to refill it for us.

Tomorrow, being the actualy 4th of July, we are hoping to be able to go to the "I Love America" celebration that one of the local HUGE assembly of God churchs puts on every year for the community. It started out with 13,000 people attending and is up to more than 100,000 people now! They have an air show, games for the kids, concesion stands, bands playing throughout the day and end with a HUGE firework show and a 35,000 sf "Living Flag" filled with their choir that sings patriotic songs during the fireworks. We are normally out of town on the 4th (for my parents BBQ), but since it is the middle of the week this time we might actually go with some friends. Only problem is they are calling for rain tomorrow! Right now it sounds like just in the evening though, so maybe we will at least be able to take the kids up for some games and watch some of the air show. If we get rained out, I guess our friends will just come here and we will all hangout together and attempt to BBQ between showers :)

And HOPEFULLY this weekend we will be able to get the baseboards ready to paint and work on cleaning out the office. I also need to get outside and cut some VERY low hanging limbs off our tree before our grass mower starts getting after us :) I have NO idea how he gets under them with their state right now! So...Saturday morning will bring a trip to Home Depot to get something to cut the limbs down (since we can't find out tree saw) as well as some new vent covers for the kitchen/bathrooms/living room & a new filter for the A/C (since we need to change that too). Then Saturday afternoon I am using my second gift certificate for a massage. Ahhhhh....looking forward to that. THEN book it back home to get to work - work - WORK! Maybe by the end of the month we will get this house back in order! We better - since we are having family over to celebrate the boys' birthdays on August 18th!