Independence Day Friends

After finally locating the Hamilton premiere party (we literally drove to the wrong state!), we settled in for a night full of history and rap. There were some very questionable lyrics and highlights in Mr. Hamilton's storyline. Because the play was three hours long, and we started at 10 PM, I think the kids kind of drifted in and out of paying attention to the musical and paying attention to their friends. Overall, the snack table was legit, the setting was unique, the bugs were biting despite the spray, and hopefully no one was morally offended. King George was definitely hilarious, and kind of stole the show . . . dah, dah, dah, da, da, da, da . . . :)

That counts as Independence Day because we didn't get home until after midnight :) We slept for a few hours, then awoke to scrub the house til it shined like the top of the Chrysler Building! (Annie) 

Our 20-year friends are in the military and every few years have to make a coast-to-coast move. This time from California to Maryland. We are a good stop along the way :) We expected them Wed/Thurs of this week, Buck even had the time off. However, the military said, because of covid, they had eight days to complete their trip--hauling a 24-foot trailer. So, their timeline bumped way forward. We cancelled the plans we'd made with our NGFs and waited for the J's arrival. It varied between 2 PM and 6 PM. Somewhere in the middle of all that, they popped several of their trailer tires and had to have all eight replaced. So, they ended up arriving around 6 PM after all. We had a healthy chicken dinner on the grill (CA people eat healthy :) and our neighbor rearranged his vehicles so our traveling friends had a place to park.

With dinner eaten, and all their stuff moved into the basement, the kids set up chairs outside in preparation for the evening's festivities. As with many other places across the country, fireworks sales in our area must have (literally) sky-rocketed! That's my second literally in one post--I'm avoiding my pet peeve, but still keeping it in use ;) After a chicken coop tour, we loaded up on bug spray (which was ineffective), and waited for the show. All the sidewalks were lined with neighborhood chairs, all the kids seemed to have lighters, and all the dogs were FREAKING out. We gave Chauncey so much melatonin he should have slept for a week, but he just drooled and shook in the basement for pretty much the entire duration. Not his favorite holiday.

You can see our handy-dandy fireworks table--there were some surprisingly big ones in those compact packages! We were able to ooh and ahh and cheer several times. At one point it was like a battle between *us* (of the cul-de-sac) and the neighbors behind the trees--I have to say, they won. And that's fine with me. All that money up in smoke! We'll just enjoy their unavoidable sharing :)

The next morning came early . . . our friends had to be on the road by nine (they stretched that from 8!) They grabbed showers and breakfast, Buck helped D hitch up the wagon, we took a few quick pics of the kids and ourselves, and away they went! We could have used a few more hours (or days!) together for sure!

I was planning a pajama day, but the kids wanted to go to the second service at church. They decided this 10 minutes before we needed to leave, and Buck was in the shower getting ready for work. Somehow we accomplished the short notice plan, and I'm glad we did. We came home to a clean house, washed up the company bedding, reassembled the classroom/guestroom, (I took a nap), and Graysen made a DELICOUS meal of baked/broiled tilapia. Brennen has pork steaks smoking on the grill as I type, so it should be another yummy dinner tonight.

We're doing our best to find some summer fun! It seems like we did a pretty good job of it this week . . . if you could count outdoorsy summer success by tallying itchy bug bites, we'd be tipping the scales. Our most frequent song lyric these days is from the 50s musically reminding us, "You're gonna need an ocean (da da da da da) of Calamine lotion . . ."