By the time the boys arrived home from their work day, I felt plenty ready to wrap up mine. I ran to the grocery store to gather Caelan's shopping list for 4th of July food, and stumbled across Pup Cups in the freezer aisle. I think Daisy and Olive approve!
With my first smidge of free time in weeks, I borrowed Brennen's Rwanda market shirt and started on the project I'd been wanting to do since we arrived home. Something to flex the creative side of my brain a little. A challenge--I've never made clothing (other than hats and scarves) before! Much less with a self-traced paper bag pattern, Laura Ingalls style. I will say, those Rwandan seamstresses surprised me more than once with their ingenuity. What took them 45 minutes, took me three days, and I'm still not done (Caelan suggested I wait and purchase matching buttons rather than sew on the five similar-ish ones I found in my button jar--another Laura Ingalls concept that didn't serve me very well despite twenty years of button collecting, lol). But!! Other than the wonky collar--because collars are impossible--and the fact that it still doesn't close in the front, I'm pretty excited about how well the shirt construction went for my first try! :) Finished product hopefully coming, soon!
Meanwhile, Noah and Caelan arrived from their visit with Noah's family, along with their luggage and a few more items to add to the moving piles downstairs. Caelan spent most of day making cute things to take to Chase's family's house for their annual Independence Day/his mom's birthday celebration. Our social director decided she needed a few more things at the store, so Noah made a Jell-o run, earning himself festive feast supply prep props! And actually, I think Caelan and Buck went to the store again when she decided she wanted to add spray whip cream to the top of the Jell-o cups + cherries. Or maybe it was just for fireworks, lol :) They definitely stopped at the fireworks tent in the grocery store parking lot. Caelan claims to be a pro at choosing "the good ones," and I'll say, she did a great job! I just didn't realize that there were so many good ones to choose until I saw the bill later . . . ha!
So, Caelan made stripey Jell-o cups, patriotic puppy chow, and red, white, & blue chocolate drizzle popcorn. Gabby made a beautiful apple pie from scratch and fluffy cornbread, too. We all enjoyed eating outdoors on the beautiful July evening, visiting with the family, sharing stories about Rwanda, congratulating our former piano teacher on her expected December arrival, and of course thanking God for our freedom in prayer before joining in a round of God Bless America.
Then came the fireworks! Some people put their explosives out with hoses, Chase's family throws the leftovers into the bonfire :) Courage.
They also exploded a watermelon. Chase has really good footage of that. The chickens seemed quite delighted . . . after the fact. That fruit really flew!
For the next few days, we had a very full house, but I didn't mind :) Daisy was delighted! Noah and Caelan were at lickable height on the pull-out couch when she was released from her kennel each morning. We tried to time it well so she wasn't their morning alarm clock, but didn't always succeed. Usually, everyone had to be up and out the door anyway. Caelan's last day of work was Friday, and the ladies had a sweet little going away celebration for her--emotional, as she loved working there and loved working with her sister.
Wow, this was not even two weeks ago and SOOOO much has happened, it's hard to get the details straight. I think that day I was assigned my first blog for work. The hardest part, other than I know virtually nothing about the subject matter--and I'm expanding the notes someone else took on a webinar I didn't watch into a 1,500-word informational piece--is that I need to write at an 8th grade reading level. That is harder than it seems, especially when the subject matter is all big technical words and fancy equipment terminology that no 8th grader would ever be reading about in the first place! :) I was happy when the most recent edit analysis got down from post-graduate work to 11th grade. That seems like a win to me! We'll see what the boss thinks.
After everyone finished up work or their day's activities, Gabby was our social director for the evening! At her suggestion, we met at the sushi/hibachi restaurant that I guess mostly everyone had been to except maybe Caelan, Noah?, and me. The rest of the Crew coached us along, as our entertaining chef tried hard to get us to try the "happy sake." But it's not happy when half of the people at the happy table aren't old enough for the "happy sake," sir! :) Most of the guys ordered double rice--look at that happy pile of happy rice, though! Wowza!
After our entertaining meal, of which not many leftovers remained--shockingly, because it was a lot of food!--dessert sounded like a super good idea. There is no shortage of ice cream shoppes in our town, so we picked the closest, which most hadn't been to in the new location. It was hopping! I think most of us got the last scoop of something or other that they were about to sell out of :) The raspberry was so good! Doesn't Graysen have a pretty smile? Ha! Noah came straight from work, if you're wondering why our clothing standards are so much lower than his--although I guess that is pretty typical :)
I'm trying to remember if this is the night they all stayed up really late to play video games? Or if that was just every night--I think it might have just been every night!
So, the next day was Noah's last day at work. Caelan and I realized there were another million errands to run before the weekend move and some "must do's" on her wish list. First up, a Hawaiian-inspired cuisine that was a solid drive in a car with no air-conditioning, but we got an early start so it wasn't too terrible. Right as the food arrived, the rental truck called and Mr. Chatty Pants talked and talked and talked while Caelan looked at the food she'd been wanting to try for months. I took a BeReal of the meals, then set down my phone to eat, and then BeReal went off for the day, and I missed it by like two minutes. Same place, doing the same thing, Caelan still on the phone. Lol! Food was good, teriyaki chicken reminded me of the Cali days, and the ice cream swirly thing was nice and light!
Next we stopped by Costco to get the red car's newly installed tires torque checked. We decided to grab some groceries, which kind of threw off our return plan, but just meant we had to stop at home first to drop off the dinner items and freezer and fridge stuff we bought. Caelan tried to get me to buy more plants, but I might as well just leave some money on the shelf and leave the plant at the store, too, because that's about as effective as bringing plants home for me. At least then they'd have a chance to survive at someone else's house, ha! These cute little Tabasco chickens made me think of Buck, though :)
Okay, so after we dropped off the food . . . we went to Kohl's and returned a disappointing phone case purchase from Amazon, dropped into a new store that was even WORSE than I remember growing up (Blech, ew, gross, barf!), I think the shoe shopping at Kohl's and Target was the last time we went like the week before--so, umm, we were thirsty, so we got some summery drinks at Target, because we were definitely there again. They had the popping boba in the lemonade. Heehee, that's fun! I left the truck keys in the shopping cart (shhh, don't tell Buck), but for sure found them before someone stole them and the truck (which has air-conditioning). They weren't the ones with the beepy key fob anyway, and we parked at the faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar end of the lot, plus there's no "Dodge" marking clues on the keys anywhere, so that *stealing person* would need a lot of determination to find the right vehicle by sticking the key in every lock in the parking lot before our barista filled two drink orders (not with light ice as we asked, btw). It was fine!!
Next, we went to the farm store, oh for the recharge kit for the red car air-conditioner, which didn't work, but we didn't exactly need, because we decided to send the silver car with the kids instead of the red car--and I think Graysen ended up taking the recharge for his silver car because his air-conditioner isn't the most bestest either. We may have also purchased chicken food and candy on that visit---solid chance, or that may have been the shoe shopping trip from before. Caelan and I ran a lot errands to the same stores on repeat in the past couple of weeks, lol!
So . . . the boys were at a campout at our neighbors' family's pond (because one of their friends works for our neighbors' dad/grandpa and asks to use the pond once each summer). Buck discovered our other neighbors planned to set off the "big" display of fireworks in our cul-de-sac with a bunch of their friends we'd never seen before and, of course, the drunk uncles that night. I'm not sure the whole story behind these fireworks, but some of them were so large that two people had to carry them into the street. Sometimes four people would be out in strategic locations lighting fireworks at the same time and running in four directions as they began firing off in various directions--mostly upwards. Debris rained down on us as we squinted into the sky. It was pretty stinking impressive.
I will say though, God put on an even better show as He stretched a stunning double rainbow across the backyard. It had to have been a mile wide and the most vivid I've seen. The colors lasted for nearly 30 minutes? We took pictures, videos, called Buck around, called Noah out of the house. It was incredible! Lots of pictures of the rainbows popped up locally, that kind of beauty is impossible to truly capture with a camera, though. Our eyes can see so much more than even the best camera can!
During the fireworks, our little neighbor girl came over with her pet tortoise and sat next to me on our little dilapidated bench that I forgot to throw away (good thing) with the last dumpster haul. I am not sure what it is like to be her, but she's definitely having a different childhood experience than our girls did. She seemed to appreciate the quiet conversation in the midst of all the noise and chaos. She also liked the sparkle and shine and getting to stay up way past her bedtime :) It was a pretty fancy evening, and the dogs did really well! They just sat by the front door together and watched us watch the fireworks. Super chill. (We picked up sooo much debris in our backyard--both the day after, and then again a week after when Buck mowed! It was crazy!!)
Okay! I have to say it every year, as coached by my dad, "Ooooh!! Aaaaahhhh!!" Now, watch the video again, and you say it, too. It's proper fireworks etiquette, you know 💖
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