4th of July Weekend Rewind

Hey everyone! How was your 4th?  We had a great weekend celebrating our nations birthday and working in the basement.  It was extra awesome since Andy had Friday off - gotta love 3 day weekends!

Thursday night Andy took the older boys fishing. They left about 4:30 and didn't come back until 9:30!  They were beat but had so much fun!  Brennan caught some that were bigger than Andy's hand which won him the biggest fish award. Aiden caught a bunch of little blue gills but that won him the 'caught the most fish' award, so both boys were pleased.  And Andy took some over to my dad's other pond to try to stock it some so that pleased him. Win-win-win I guess!  Tater and I dinked around here and just enjoyed having some quiet time for the two of us.  I went to bed at 9 and had just dozed off when the boys got home.  Was a great night for all!

Friday morning we started hanging insulation in the basement.  We did the entire south wall which is in both boy's rooms, and started the west wall in Bren's room. Then we ran out of staples which happened about 10:30, good timing since we wanted to run to the big city anyway on another Menards run for the basement.  We picked up some more insulation, staples and a few other odds and ends.  We also stopped for the boys' favorite burritos at Panchero's for lunch. :)  We came home, put the baby to bed and finished the walls then started hanging insulation in the ceiling til we ran out of time.

For supper to went in to Andy's folks' house for a little BBQ with his brother's family.  Pork burgers, hot dogs, chips, cheese, deviled eggs (my BIL makes the best deviled eggs this side of the Mississippi!), jello fluff, and pears in jello. For dessert one of my husbands favorites - Cherry Float.  It was a nice way to start off the holiday weekend!

Saturday morning we decided we'd head over to the town Andy works in to watch their 4th of July parade.  It was kind of up in the air but we decided it wouldn't be fair to the boys to skip that American tradition.   No pics, sorry! I figured you'd already seen one parade post this year, you didn't want to see yet another.

After the parade we came home, grabbed some lunch and headed back to the basement. Tate fell asleep in the truck on the ride home from the parade so we figured we only had about 2 hours to finish the insulation before he woke up.  We did get it finished in time, plus he slept long enough for me to grab a shower and wash off all that itchiness!  After that Andy just kept going in the basement, working on finishing the trim on the outside of the windows.  I puttered around the house doing some laundry and a little cleaning.  We ate supper at home then headed to town for the fireworks show.  My aunt and uncle own quite a bit of land around the fairgrounds where the fireworks are set off so we go there and sit on their trailer to watch.  We are right under them!  It's pretty cool.  Andy lit a million and one sparklers for the kids, they had a great time playing!

All that smoke is awesome - keeps the bugs away! :)  Left to Right: nephew Charley, Aiden, my 2nd cousin's son Louis, niece Nora Jean and Brennan.

And Tate loved watching the kids run around and even got brave enough to do a sparkler with his favorite Auntie Cole (my sister).

The ride home from the fireworks is always so neat - we can see other towns and homeowners who bought permits to light fireworks off the whole way home.  It's so magical to see those puffs of fire erupt in the sky off in the distance!  Here are a couple pics from our fireworks show.

That brings us to the bonus day - Sunday!  We finally started handing drywall!  I love this part because it really shows you what you have!  Andy's parents and brother came over to help with the ceiling - we decided that might be too much for just the two of us.  Everything went really smooth, they got all the ceilings done, now we can start on the walls!  Yay yay yay!!!  Happy girl doing a happy dance here!!!

While they hung the ceiling I mowed the yard, did a little weeding and trimming of some low hanging branches, and helped the boys pick rocks out of the dirt patch (where we tore up the lawn to put in the windows).  It'll be so nice to have that seeded this fall.  2 more months, I can wait 2 more months.

We had a great, full weekend.  We are all pleasantly exhausted and ready to the start the week.  I am so excited for this week - we find out the baby's sex on Tuesday!!!  I promise I'll share that with you all, after we tell our families.  Can't wait!!!

Does anyone else feel like the 4th is sort of the half-way point of summer?   I know it should still feel like it's just beginning but for us we have the 4th, then 2 weeks later our county fair, then it's just about August which is back to school stuff and the State Fair.  It just goes so fast after the 4th!  And we haven't done a darn thing with the boys for fun yet - better get a move on with that!

Have a great week!