Happy 4th!

What a busy day! We kicked off the morning watching the girls at their swim lessons (at 8am!)…. there will be another post with those photos. After that we came back home and kept busy with basic household tasks, still cleaning up from our camping trip last week. A quick trip to Fred Meyer while the kids went back to the pool for Open Swim, then back home to get ready to go to the Bernards’ house for a family BBQ. Then back home to light fireworks in the cul-de-sac.

I have to admit it was an odd feeling to not have Bob go with us to the Bernards, or meet us there. He’s ALWAYS there when we go and he’s always the life of the party, he was dearly missed by many. I got a little teary at the reality of the situation. Here’s one of my favorite pictures of him from a previous Bernards party:

Actually, I guess that was a graduation party, not a 4th of July party, but nonetheless it was a party at the Bernards house!

The house is set deep in the country outside McMinnville- way way way out. They have a great view- and since they had three kids (now grown) they have a playstructure and swings and down in the barn they set up a couple basketball hoops! How cool is that! Trevor and Riley teamed up with a couple neighbor boys to play basketball and just “hang out” the way kids do. It’s nice that they are getting more self-sufficient and able to entertain themselves, although Trevor is reaching that “too cool” age where he doesn’t want to play with the kids, nor hang with the adults.

Brooke befriended Lainey and the two of them ran around together, capturing potato bugs and being mischevious with ice cubes and water bottles (trying to get Ashley all wet!!)

It was a good time. We got a good family photo, too!

Back home around 8:45 and the fireworks were already starting around us. The dogs both seemed OK, but we hung out in the backyard and played fetch with Nikita to make SURE she was OK with all the banging and booming around us. The kids asked if they could go up on the roof (they’ve never been up there before) and Jim thought he could outwit them by telling them if they could find a ladder and get up there, sure! Well, they did. All three of them were up on the roof watching the fireworks all around us. Scary as a parent! Yikes! We only let them stay up there for about 5 minutes then we all headed out to the cul-de-sac to light our 2 totes full of fireworks.