Our weekend

I guess I pretty much suck at this, but I will go ahead and post about our 4th of July weekend anyway. We had my brother Tom and his family, my sister Jenny and her family, her brother n-law and his family, my brother in-law Cory and his girls, my sister Sara and her family, and my parents all over for a 4th of July b-b-que and a pretty dangerous fireworks show. It is the same thing EVERY year. The guys go out to the "Ill-Eagle" fireworks stand and buy about $150 each worth of bottle rockets, firecrackers, and anything else that their wives would freak out about them buying. They start letting off their dangerous explosives 48 hours before it is necessary to do so. Their wives (including me) start screaming at them about 48 hours before it is necessary to do so. They act shocked that we are stressing out about them sticking a firecracker in one end of a tube while a three year old has his eye to the other end. It is finally dark outside and they have barely managed to save a few fireworks to put on a scary, but decent show for us, and also manage to do so without any serious injuries or deaths. Then I go around the house looking for any leftover bottle rockets and firecrackers and hide them until the next year. I was raised with such extreme caution, that it makes this one of the most stressful holidays of the year. But we all did have a really great time....we meaning Dwight and the kids.


The party started on the back patio, until we all started to get smoked out. Then we moved it to the front yard for the BIG show. (I didn't get any pictures of that part, so you will just have to look at the back patio ones)
With all the cousins in town, we decided to throw Ella an early b-day party. It was just a day early. We decided to trash mom's house for that one. Ella was so excited to be able to have a party with most of her cousins there. We were only missing Becky's kids.

Here's one of the whole crew. Jenny sat in the picture, so Wolf would. Plus, she looks so young, no one would even notice.

I just had to add this next one in here. I have never seen my mom's house so trashed, I just had to take a picture to document it. I took some from several different angles, and you still won't get the same affect as you would have had you been down in the basment in person. The smell of 20 sweaty kids all playing down in a basement together is something that just can't be captured on film, but take my word on it, it was pretty bad.

So, everyone left today, and my kids cried all the way home. And I had to spend the whole time getting them excited for all the other fun things we could do during the rest of the summer. They want everything to include their cousins though. Bailey said he would rather spend time with his cousins than with any of his friends. I am so glad that all my kids get along so well with all of their cousins. It makes it so fun to get together with family. Thanks to Tom, Cory, and Jenny and their families for taking the time and spending the money to come up and visit us. We only wish it could have been for longer.