After a 4 month hiatus we now return to regular programming...

Whew, was that a blogging break or what? It wasn't really intentional, life just kinda got really busy, really quickly and I think we've fallen into a little groove here in Texas. Back in March we had been stateside for about six months and I would say we have definitely settled down. We've met neighbors, made friends, started new hobbies. I started scrapbooking with Project Life so my blogging has lagged as I try to scrap our time in Italy. We also have had a slew of visitors and generally kept really busy. 

Lets see if I can sum it up:

March- Let's see, in March was I post-op from my surgery and finally allowed to resume normal activities. About that same time, the kids had spring break from school. This was the first year in quite a few where we decided to plan nothing. We went nowhere and it was sort of amazing. We relaxed. We played xbox, drew with sidewalk chalk and blew bubbles. We explored thrift shops and playgrounds in our town. The following week B's niece, nephew and nephew's girlfriend came to visit so that of course meant visits to Kemah, crawfish dinners and fun. Frozen came out on digital download so we watched a lot of that and at the end of the month, Ry turned EIGHT years old!

He chose a dinner at Chili's and received the two things he wanted the most: a Kindle Fire and Lord Business Evil Lair lego set.

April- Ron's youngest brother came and stayed with us for a few weeks so it was a different dynamic having seven in the house instead of six. The weather finally started to warm up without so much rain and allergens and we spent most evenings outside. After my surgery I had made it a goal of mine to make some lifestyle changes. I had given up soda back in January and after having my surgery, realized just how much weight I'd put on (roughly 15lbs while overseas and then getting settled here). I started out walking with an end goal being running (but in April I was nowhere near running yet!) We bought the kids a basketball hoop and the boys kept pretty busy ''shooting hoops". Easter came and went. Ron took the kids fishing a few times and discovered new areas around the bay.

Overall the month passed by really quickly!

May- May was a BUSY month! At the beginning of May I pre-enrolled Connor into KINDERGARTEN!

What? This little guy is already going to school? Yeah I can barely believe it. He's also already reading a lot of signs, captions, etc as well as spelling and writing notes up a storm. That first weekend in May we so excited to go to San Antonio to visit Aunt Debbie and Christoper. Chris was graduating from his tech school in the AF and it was our chance to see him before he moved to his first duty assignment: Japan! It was so much fun getting to spend the weekend with them and to see our ''old stomping grounds". We went (of course) down to the Riverwalk and the Alamo as well as the Quarry and the Japanese Tea Gardens.

 

Sidenote...this was the last time my kids were at the Japanese Tea Gardens:

Yeah, that was THREE years ago. Seems insane huh? Anyway, I digress. So we had an amazing Mother's Day weekend with family (yay!) and returned home to a busy week of Mother's Day brunches at school, Field Day, and because we are completely insane and....we got a new puppy! Yes, yes we just got a puppy last year (Can you even believe that Lucca is almost two!?). But we're settled now. We're in a home that we own and we have no intentions of moving EVER, we won't need to worry about an overseas flight and I wanted this puppy. Now I'll be honest, I had asked before, several times throughout our marriage and was always met with a ''are you insane, you want that now? Maybe when the kids are older and can help take care of it". Because you see, I got a puppy but not just any puppy either. I got a Great Dane.

That is Stella, at 8 weeks old meeting Lucca (who weighs 14lbs). Now Stella was nervous and timid and so utterly adorable and tiny when we got her on May 15. She is very smart. She learned her name in less than 2 days, her and Lucca became instant BFF's, she got house training and crate training down quickly. The "issue" of course with Great Danes is their size. And because we've always rented and always moved, we have always had little dogs. We wanted the kids to be comfortable with a big dog, not afraid. Well little Stella was born into a litter of 12 pups and her owner wanted a re-homing fee but wasn't asking any sort of outrageous price. This was the perfect opportunity to get a Dane; the kids would see her grow day to day and know her without a fear of her size. With summer right around the corner we would have plenty of time to leash train her and play. Well as I sit here and write this, my now 36lb Stella is snoring. Here is a picture from last week:

Why yes, that is my husband carrying/hugging our now 13 week old Great Dane. 

So anyway, back to May. We got Stella and that same week Logan and I celebrated our Birthday's. We had a small party with friends and a taco bar here at home. The following week Auntie Michelle came to visit! YAY! Of course we went to Kemah and Galveston and downtown Houston and hit up the outlet mall a few times. We went on Dolphin tour boats and ate Tex-Mex and grubbed on s'mores in the evenings. We basically had fun every.single.day for a week.

And immediately following Michelle's visit, we had more visitors. Nanaw and Papa and Grandma Phyllis came down for a week too! They arrived end of May and stayed into the first week of June. We did much of the same activities (Kemah, Galveston, Dolphin boat tour, Outlet Mall) with them as we did with Michelle but we also spent evenings chit-chatting and staying up late with Grandma watching Criminal Minds :) Grandma was diagnosed with Parkinson's while we were overseas so while she gets worn out a little easier these days, she's still a night owl and still keeps up with the kids!

 

It was a lot of fun having them here. While I often wish we lived closer, I love living here and I love having so many visitors (and that we can accommodate them). They stayed until June 8th, then had to head back to Kansas.

June- It's summer break! With suddenly no visitors and Ron back at work, the kids and I found ourselves with entire days needing to be filled with fun. We initially bought a kiddy pool for the backyard but have since grown to love the neighborhood/community pool. I was extremely nervous to take them to a big pool by myself. One mom and four kids who don't know how to swim real well, is totally nervewracking. But we loaded up their arms with floaties and tried it out: so. much. fun! It's a big pool and is never crowded. The kids took to the water like little fishes and the lifeguards are attentive. If it's not raining, we head to the pool every afternoon loaded down with snacks of course.

On rainy days we watch movies. I've made it my mission to show the kids all the good movies from my own childhood. Last week it rained every.single.day but it gave us an opportunity to watch 'Back to the Future' 'The Princess Bride' and even 'The Sandlot'. They also have fallen in love with "Hey Arnold". We bought a family pass to Moody Gardens, which is resort/park in Galveston. It has three Pyramids, one is a Rainforest, one is an Aquarium, and the other is a Museum and has a 3D and 4D movie theater as well as a "Beach" with imported soft sand, a water playground, a zero entry wave pool and a lazy river. The first time we went we did the Rainforest and Aquarium. Last weekend we tried out the Beach. While it started storming two hours in, we had a lot of fun before we got banished from enjoying the beach due to lightning.

Today we took to exploring a nearby Nature Center that has a 1 mile walking trail. We saw lots of rollie-pollies, ladybugs, slugs, birds, two snakes, toads, a slew of butterflies, snails, palms and cacti. It was hot (93 degrees when we started) so there was plenty of whining (both heat and snake induced) but afterward they all admitted that it was a lot of fun.

With the boys all being in school come August, Maggie and I are keeping an eye out for fun things to do just the two of us. I mentioned above that I had started working out and I'm now up to walking/jogging anywhere from 1-6 miles a day (usually treadmill in the morning and outdoors in the evenings but that's dependent on weather). I can even run an entire mile, in 11:22 seconds. I realize that is a jog to most but I am really proud of myself as I have never ran an entire mile without walking until now, at age 30. I just ordered a jogging stroller so that Maggie and I can go on walks/runs in the mornings after dropping the boys off at school this fall. She is really excited to go with me and while I wouldn't have thought I would ever buy a jogging stroller for a 3.5 year old, she is still really petite and I know she isn't in anyway up to walking 4 miles. After a great recommendation from Amy and prior knowledge with them from Hollie, we went with a BOB. I'm stalking the FedEx man I'm so eager for it to arrive!

My doctor gave me the okay to workout the second week of March and since then, I have. I walk at least 10,000 steps everyday (love the fitbit) and then mix in yoga, the shread dvd and using the stability ball as well at least 3 times a week. I've never been one who likes exercising but I really do find myself enjoying it and I love that ''me'' time. I love being outside more, I feel myself getting stronger and I've lost 11lbs without using any pills, shakes, vitamins, etc. I don't want to diet, I want to have a healthy lifestyle, be here for my kids and set a good example.  So the evenings that I used to spend sitting at the computer eating oreos, surfing pinterest and blogging...I no longer have time for. I'm usually exhausted by 10pm! So while there has a been a significant lack of blogging, that's only because we're busy living life (don't worry I'm still busy eating oreo's too!).

A Day Trip to Galveston

When we settled in Texas, we settled in a suburb equal distance to Houston as it is to Galveston. So this weekend when it was 65 degrees and sunny and we were left with ''What should we do today?" we opted to see Galveston. Now we had been a couple times before but for the beach. This time I first went to the Galveston tourism website and searched ''budget friendly''...since we really were just wanting to sight-see. We found two things that sounded like good, cheap, family fun: The {free} ferry from Galveston to Port Bolivar which dolphins can often be seen from and a candy shop called LaKings located on the Strand. Off we went.

We chose the Ferry first.

The kids loved it! They couldn't wait to depart the landing and get out of the van.  It's a 20 minute Ferry ride across the channel so it's just enough that they have fun without getting restless.   

 Logan is "Star Student of the Week" this week and with that honor comes the responsibility of taking care of the class mascot :Brown Bear. Now he can say that Brown Bear saw a ferry this weekend :)

After the ferry we spent about twenty minutes at Port Bolivar before the kids were itching for that taffy we had talked about. Most of the homes were built up on the stilts, which the kids thought was neat.

 Ron was amazed and actually pulled the car over...those ''rocks'' on the ground are all oysters!

A quick ferry ride later and we were on our way to The Strand.

If you've ever been to Lawrence, KS ''Mass Street" well "The Strand" is a lot like that but bigger, right by the Gulf and from the Strand you can see Cruise ships dock in the port. We (in the fashion that we do) just hopped in the car and went and were pleasantly surprised to discover that the day we went was a Chili and Beer Fest. Lots of yummy 'fair' food and microbrewery beers. I enjoyed sipping on a Strawberry Daiquiri while we explored. At last we found La King's Confectionery...also known as "the taffy place". Walking into La King's was like walking back in time. Soda bar, candy cases, adorable little tables and chairs everywhere and the sweet smell of sugar!

I got so wrapped up in it all that I didn't think to take photos until we were at the back of the shop, watching him pull the taffy. D'oh!

 He puts forty pounds of taffy on this belt and it stretches it out. The end of the belt will cut and wrap each piece of taffy. 40 pounds of taffy will be cut into about 3000 pieces and it takes about 30 minutes. This flavor was ''Mardi Gras'' and was yellow with ribbons of purple and green. It tasted like ''tutti frutti".

 As the machine started wrapping, the sampling begun! After tasting a warm piece, it wasn't as exciting to pick pieces out of bins. We bought peanut butter, pina colada, strawberry, orange, watermelon, root beer and cherry. I didn't taste all of them but there were no complaints. All in all, a fun afternoon followed up with dinner at Rainforest Cafe. The kids LOVE Rainforest Cafe.

Today was the day.

There have been moments since returning to Texas that it's hard to believe we cut our time in Italy short. These thoughts came more frequently while B was furloughed. I miss my friends in Italy, terribly. I miss seeing the mountains, I miss the wine and fresh milk, I miss grabbing dinner at Regina's. I miss my ''me'' time on Tuesday's and Thursday's while the kids were all in school. When B was furloughed while it Italy, it presented time to go to Slovenia or Croatia. To spend a day in Asiago eating cheese or wandering around Bassano del Grappa.

While B was furloughed here (which thankfully is over and he will receive back pay) it was worrisome. We just moved, we just bought a house and I think we both had a few ''what were we thinking'' thoughts fly through our heads. We weren't given a ''Furlough Friday'' it was a ''Furlough with no known end in sight''. We couldn't really enjoy the time here because we didn't know when it would end.

But after spending this past weekend with our families, after meeting my nephew for the first time, hugging my grandma who was diagnosed with Parkinson's while we were overseas and celebrating everyone being together, I feel good about our decision. Sure it's a ten hour drive, but it was completely manageable. We left at 6am and we were hugging family by 6pm...the same day, in the same time zone. Now that Ron has returned to a career that he enjoys, the boys are having fun with spirit week at school and I am decorating a house that we own...things feel good. Things feel really good.


The BIG "we did the right thing moment'' came on the walk home from school today. (Sidenote: the fact that the kids are able to WALK to school is ah-mazing. In Italy they rode a bus for close to an hour each way.) While walking home I asked how their day went. Logan told me about painting a cow at art. Ryan shared that he ran FIVE laps at school and when he added on the ''and I didn't even need my inhaler" it just reaffirmed what I already knew....We made the right choice.

We have been in Texas almost three months now. Three months without one of the kids needing a breathing treatment, without albuterol, without a single dose of an oral steroid or a doctor's appointment. Three months without having to run a vaporizer. Three months without taking a daily preventive inhaler. Three months without coughing. Three months of happy, healthy kids who are riding bikes outside, running laps at school and doing it without worry. While there was a downside to living in Italy with four kids, I can't find one for Texas.

Today was the day I realized that this is home. This is where we are meant to be. Where we NEED to be. Texas may not have amazing (and cheap!) Italian wine or views of the mountains but I guess I'll need to get used to sweet tea and views of the gulf. Something tells me it shouldn't be too hard.

Life after Europe

We didn't live in Italy for too long (20 months) but due to my kids' ages (they were 5, 4, just turned 3, and 14 months old when we arrived in Vicenza) apparently they didn't remember as much about life in the US as I thought they would. We've been In Texas for about 36 hours now and here are some of their discoveries/joys:

-Just moments arriving in our hotel room, Connor starts hollering "Mom come here! Mom come here! This hotel is awesome! The bathroom has the coolest thing ever" so he literally take my hand, leads me to his bathroom and exclaims "our hotel has a clubhouse!"....while showing me the CLOSET.

Yep. Just a closet. But we moved to Italy 2 weeks after he turned 3, and our house in Italy didn't have a single closet anywhere. So to him, this door led to a secret room.

-Our flight from Italy took us to San Antonio where we stayed one night, and then drove to Houston. We stopped on our way and picked up Sonic for lunch. All the kids got wacky packs and I asked "Do you want French fries or tater tots?" All the boys immediately (excitedly) responded "tater tots". Except Maggie who said "what's that?" And I realized she had never had a tater tot. She had also never had the pellet ice, which fascinated her.

-Logan went to the bathroom and then came out to tell me that he was able to flush all by himself. "It didn't have two buttons mom, it has a thing hiding on the side and I could reach it!"

-We get to Houston, we're driving near downtown when Maggie wakes from her nap. I tell her that we are almost there and she is staring out the window. She says "what's that?" and I turn to see what she's pointing at...it was the overpasses. I had to explain that there were cars up there, which she then said "I not see them". She was fascinated by the skyscrapers downtown as well. It took a lot of explaining that they were tall building with offices and that the little squares were windows.

Other things were:

-the size of Target and the toy department (7 aisles of toys, not 2 like our PX had). Maggie went CRAZY when she saw all the LaLaLoopsies and the boys had the same reaction to the 2 aisles of just superhero stuff.

-Arby's at the airport...how did they make the fries like that and had they ever had them before? (it was Ryan and the answer was yes).

-There are yellow school buses just like in my book (Connor).

We have been stateside for less than 2 full days and they love it!

BIG BIG News for our family!

Back in January I posted about the hard time we were having in Italy, medically. The kids have had asthma flare-ups and problems every single month (at least one child/month has been to the clinic for wheezing/coughing).  So since January, Ron has off and on applied for jobs that would get us back to the mid-west or Texas. Texas isn't very close to family but all of the kids did great medically in San Antonio so it was still on our list. We knew it this economy it might not happen, worst comes to worst and we would have to return to San Antonio in December 2014 and he would go back to work at his old office. Not ideal but not horrible either.

In March, he applied for a position at the Space Center in Houston. This position is a pay grade higher than the one in San Antonio and his current position here. It's also not the same job, but rather in a related field. So when April arrived and along with it was a call for a phone interview, we were excited but didn't get our hopes up. In May when we hadn't heard anything back we assumed he wasn't selected. So imagine our surprise when he got the phone call in June saying that he was their selected candidate and if he wanted the position, it was his!

Even though we went back and forth the entire month of May as to whether this was really something we wanted to do: cut our time here short and move to a city we have never even visited, we realized that in the long term this was best for our family.

See, Ron and I had made a decision years ago...I want to be a stay at home mom (and he loves that) but supporting a family of six on one income isn't always easy. I agreed to move as often as needed if it meant accepting a job he was interested in and that paid more...while our kids were young. Once they were old enough to really make friends I wanted to settle down. So we've moved (a lot in the last 7 years) but he's had great opportunities (overseas assignments are rare as a civilian in his field) and now we're ready to put down roots. This job at the Space Center is one he can see himself in for awhile, he loves that he'll be working for NASA and the pay is good.

Even though it cuts our time in Europe short we think it's for the greater good. If we pass on this opportunity and stay in Italy until December 2014 that means returning to San Antonio, to a job that Ron chose to leave to come here. It's less money than what the job in Houston pays as well and as much as people say 'It's not about the money' when you have one income supporting an entire family, it is sometimes about the money. I don't have a college degree (I withdrew from college classes at the beginning of my junior year when I found out I was pregnant with Ryan. A decision that I do not regret. I love being able to stay home and raise my kids! I was majoring in 'early childhood education' and I kinda do that everyday now so it's worth it to me) so it's not like he could take the lesser paying job and I could go to work; I could get a job but it would be minimum wage and not worth the daycare expense.

So yes, we're giving up on some amazing travel opportunities. Yes, Italy has been amazing for educating the kids about how other people live, the history of other countries and the differences. It's awesome that my 2 year old can tell the difference between the Eiffel Tower and the Leaning Tower and knows she has been to both. But let's be honest my kids are 7 years old down to 2 years old...even if we stay another 18 months, they aren't going to remember much about our time here.

And while I didn't get to do everything I had hoped to, I am leaving without regrets. I have matured so much over the last few years. Twenty-one year old Shannon would have never in a million years even considered MOVING overseas. And I did that. And I realize that while I didn't do everything on my list, I did a lot in 18 months while toting along 4 kiddos. This was a list I made back in November 2011:

1. I want to see all the touristy Italian icons: leaning tower of Pisa, the Colosseum in Rome, Venice, the vineyards, Tuscany, Cinque de Terre, I want to see the works of Van Gogh and Di Vinci.
2. Travel to Spain, Germany, France, London, Ireland, Croatia and Greece.
3. Learn how to make authentic Italian foods. Top of the list is lasagna, homemade sauce and real Alfredo...you know, not from a Classico jar.
4. Become mostly fluent in Italian {after 5 years of Spanish in High School, I'm hoping I'll ''get'' it}
5. Learn about, sample and drink the wine!
6. Take the boys to a real soccer futbol game
7. Become friends with as many locals/neighbors as possible; help give Americans a good name :)
8. Ride on a Vespa! Preferably on a cobblestone road
9. Become more open-minded about my food, try new things and encourage the kids to as well.
10. Remember that we will get homesick. I will wonder if we did the right thing. And remember that this opportunity won't last forever, make the most of it and leave with little regrets. 

and what was done...

1. I want to see all the touristy Italian icons: leaning tower of Pisa, the Colosseum in Rome, Venice, the vineyards, Tuscany, Cinque de Terre, I want to see the works of Van Gogh and Di Vinci.
2. Travel to Spain, Germany, France, London, Ireland, Croatia and Greece. Also went to Austria and Slovenia.
3. Learn how to make authentic Italian foods. Top of the list is lasagna, homemade sauce and real Alfredo...you know, not from a Classico jar. *Alfredo doesn't even exist in Italy, ha! And while I haven't learned how to make, I buy the sauces and already made lasagna from the italian grocery...and it is delicious*
4. Become mostly fluent in Italian {after 5 years of Spanish in High School, I'm hoping I'll ''get'' it} *anyone stationed here will ''get'' this one...high expectations! but I definitely know more now than I did 18 months ago*
5. Learn about, sample and drink the wine!
6. Take the boys to a real soccer futbol game
7. Become friends with as many locals/neighbors as possible; help give Americans a good name :) *We don't really have Italian neighbors but I have made friends with Italians, including the owner of the farm that our milk machine is located*
8. Ride on a Vespa! Preferably on a cobblestone road
9. Become more open-minded about my food, try new things and encourage the kids to as well.
10. Remember that we will get homesick. I will wonder if we did the right thing. And remember that this opportunity won't last forever, make the most of it and leave with little regrets. 

In the long run, this is best. I know that. We will be moving in August...yeah, you read that right. We have less than 45 days left but we do plan to make the most of it. We are planning on going to Slovenia and Croatia over the next 4 day weekend. If it doesn't happen, I won't be upset but if it does that would be wonderful!

Whats really wonderful though, in the grand scheme of things: We'll be able to buy a house and settle down, finally! We'll establish roots and give our children a ''hometown''. And we won't be living in Houston, we'll be in a suburb to the south that has an exemplary rated school district. Europe is amazing but this feels like it's going to be pretty amazing too!

What a week!

So I haven't blogged in a week because I have been so extremely busy. First and foremost, last Wednesday we had some special guests arrive at our casa: Nanaw, Papa and Nanaw Phew Phew! They got in right around suppertime and stayed through breakfast today. Man, oh man did we do a ton of stuff while they were here! Thursday we did the Riverwalk, ate lunch (and some of us napped) at Joes Crab Shack.

 

Then on Friday we went to lunch at a little Pizzeria/Italian restaurant and had planned on doing more downtown but the weather was on and off sprinkles, over 100 degrees and humid as heck. We opted to hit up Central Market, you know parked the ol' Swaggerwagon next to a Maserati:

Told the kids ''don't touch!" a million times, both in the parking lot and in the store. Then headed home. Saturday we did the Japanese Tea Gardens & the Farmer's market, then went shopping and had lunch.

B and Papa then headed to see Captain America and us girls and kids, headed back home for a nap. Once the guys were home we switched places and we females went shopping. Sunday we took the morning super slow and relaxing then went out for lunch. Came home, napped and had a nice grilled dinner at home complete with cupcakes in honor of Nanaw's birthday (which is this Sunday). Monday B had to work so we headed up to Gruene. It was nice on a Monday; still somewhat busy but not near as crowded as our last visit. This time we actually went into the old Gruene Hall where the boys posed and played on the stage.We crossed the street and enjoyed an old 'dublin dr. pepper' with Nanaw Phew Phew at the soda fountain then headed over to the old saw mill for lunch. By this time it was mid afternoon and hotter than hell, we came back into town, got dinner prepped then headed to Walmart.

Now you may think Why is she blogging about going to Wal-Mart? Well, I'll tell you why this is significant in a moment.

Tuesday morning we went to Lulu's Bakery and Cafe. Papa had been there once before and since then it had been featured on Travel Channel and Man v. Food. If you watch the show, it's the episode where Adam orders the 3lb cinnamon roll. (I would link up but I'm now holding an almost 10 month old and trying to wrap this up). We enjoyed their ''famous'' chicken fried steaks and took a cinnamon roll to-go. The boys were ecstatic that it was bigger than their heads. Seriously.

We then decided to work off all of the calories by walking around the Botanical Gardens. The gardens are SO pretty but man was it hot, lol.

We were there for a few hours before heading home and digging into that cinnamon roll. All 8 1/2 of each us tried some and we barely made a dent in it. Seriously, we ate maybe a 1/4 of it. It was good but probably would have tasted even better fresh.

So, back to why we went to Walmart: we went there to buy Bubba his school supplies...for kindergarten. My baby starts school in less than one month. So with school supply list in hand, we got everything on his list. He is, at least in the materialistic sense, ready for school. In fact, this morning I had to go up to the elementary school and register him for class. I can barely believe it. I'll admit it, I cried. Though I will blame it on the fact that I was going on about 5 hours of sleep, my parents and grandma left town the same time I left for school and I think my emotions were all.over.the.place. Add to that I found out that Pooks doesn't meet the super freaking ridiculous qualifications for preschool you know, because we make ''too much money'' and speak english and I was pretty bummed out this morning.

It all ends well. Bubba is excited, Pooks understands that he can't go until he is five years old. In addition to all of that, Peanut is 1/2 potty trained, Sissy started waving and saying ''Hi" and it just seems like a ton of stuff is all happening at once. It's exhausting! Enjoyable but exhausting!

Why my kids ran outside in their pajamas/underwear...

It was raining of course! This past weekend it was 97 degrees...then a freak rainstorm rolled in. The wind picked up, the sky darkened, the temp dropped to 86 degrees and it rained. Really rained. For about...10 minutes. But the kids {who prior to moving to TX, did NOT like rain/getting wet} went running outside to see/touch/feel all those glorious drops!

 

It really is the little things in life : )

The 4th of July in South Texas...

is not like any previous 4th of July that I've celebrated. Because we're in a severe drought (I think it has rained less than 5 times since we moved here 7 months ago) they banned the sale of all fireworks, the firing of all fireworks and all public firework shows. SixFlags, Sea World, the Alamo....all cancelled. So, we did our best to have fun without them. It was different and I didn't like it very much but we prevailed and made up for our loss of pyrotechnics with food! Funnel cake, fried pickles, watermelon, s'mores, chocolate chip cookies, grilled hotdogs...mmm! We went to the Home Depot Kid's Workshop on Saturday, then on Sunday we went to the park and had a picnic. Monday we stayed home, played outside, made more food and just relaxed.

 

 

 

Next best thing to fireworks? Light up wands from the last years Fair

 

 

 The Wal-Mart was selling those poppers so we bought a few boxes...

 

 How was YOUR fourth of July??