Fourth – Family – Fireworks

As the holiday weekend draws to a close, I hope you got the chance to enjoy it. We certainly enjoyed it, though it was toned down from previous years.

We didn’t have the entire family with us this year. Some of the family was sick and some were invited elsewhere or had something else going on. We tossed a few burgers and dogs on the grill and enjoyed a bonfire.

It’s been awhile since we have been able to enjoy a bonfire, so this was really nice.

The fireflies were plentiful and beautiful that night. Ella and Andrew loved catching them.

They had a little Tupperware container they were trying to put them in, but I think the lid wasn’t on right. Every time they came back to drop one in, the others were gone.

Sam bought us all matching shirts to wear. July is National Hot Dog Month, and she’s been thinking a lot about her sister Grace who passed away. The shirts have Mickey Mouse on them and say Hot Diggity Dog on them. Grace loved Mickey Mouse.

We were missing some of the cousins, but quite a few were with us and they had a blast.

We get to watch the fireworks right from our backyard every year. This year they were not too bad. They had some new ones, but I felt other years were better. For what it is worth, the town raises ,money every year to do them. Maybe they were short on donations this year. You still can’t beat a decent show…

Oh, and incidentally, I was able to get my yearly flag photos. Six Fourths of July for Ella and four for Andrew.

These two are growing too fast!

Projects – Done

Over the weekend, I finished up some of the projects on my “To Do” list.

One of them, I’ve blogged about a couple times. I feel like the nook is officially complete. I wanted to get a cushion for the bench, but the size was odd. I really thought that I was going to have to get one custom made, or by the foam and fabric and make my own. However, I found a solution I would have never thought of!

I had to go to Menard’s to get some mulch for the front yard. As we walked through the store, I passed the pet area. I happened to see a dog bed that said 42 inches. I knew that was the length of the bench (and nook itself) because I measured to mark off where the coat hooks were going to go. I put the only one they had in the cart and walked over to where the tape measures were. I knew the bench was 42 x 26, so I wondered if I’d get lucky. I did!

I picked up a decorative pillow and it is now officially complete!

The second project was fixing the swing set for the kids. The main beam on the set that was given to us was a bit rotted out, so my father-in-law told me what to get from the store to fix it.

He came over on Memorial Day and we swapped out the old hardware, drilled new holes, and mounted the new beam. After that, we put up a toddler swing, a regular swing, and a net swing for the kids. At some point I need to paint the bean, but there are a few other boards that need to be replaced first. The kids were thrilled to be able to play on it, though.

As a bonus, my mother-in-law brought burgers and dogs to grill for dinner.

The last, and easiest, project was a small (but important) one. A year or so ago, I mounted a flag on one of the trees in the front yard. The weather got the best of the aluminum pole and it broke and fell off the mount. The flag itself was tattered a bit, too. It was time for a new one. Thankfully, the mount is still in good shape and I was able to fly the Stars and Stripes proudly for Memorial Day.

I wish more people flew the flag at their house….

Happy 246th Birthday, USA!

My family and I had a nice weekend celebrating America’s birthday.

My wife had to work Sunday night, so she came home and slept for part of the day before getting up to get ready for the festivities. As I have mentioned in the past, our city puts on a nice little fireworks show that we can watch right from our back yard. Because of this, the Fourth has kind of been “our” holiday.

Most of Sam’s family had planned to be up north at her dad’s cottage for the holiday. Her mom was going to be home with her sister and asked if it would be ok to come over. We had no plans, so we were more than happy to have them come over. It wasn’t long before the rest of her family decided that they were going to come over, too!

After Sam got up and we all got ready, we posed for our annual “Family Fourth of July selfie. I’m sure that we did this long before Ella was born, but they have meant more with her in them. I went back and found the pictures from the years before and put them back to back to back. This year, we forgot to look at the year’s prior so we could all be standing the same way, but we got every in it and looking at the camera. Here is July 4th – 2020, 2021 and 2022 (with the addition of Andrew):

Sam had looked back at her Facebook memories and there was a very cute picture of Ella walking down the sidewalk with a flag in her hand. We tried to recreate it with her this year, and then had AJ try it, too.

She had on the cutest outfit! Her shorts are an American flag!

I love the way Andrew looks here! He was waving the flag as I took the picture.

Sam’s folks brought hot dogs and we cooked them up on the grill. There was fresh pineapple, watermelon, and homemade cookies. Best of all, there was family. My nieces and nephew were over and Ella and Andrew had a blast playing with them. Aunt Emily brought glow necklaces, glow bracelets, and glow sticks so each kid was lit up pretty good.

I fogged the back yard with some spray I had never used before. It was made by Coleman and it is meant for camp grounds. It was great, because I made it through the night without a mosquito bite. I wish it would have repelled the flying beetles that seemed to be all over the place, though.

Around 10, we all gathered up our chairs and went out to the back of the yard to watch the fireworks show. Our town put on about a 30 minute show, which lit up the sky! At first, Ella was loving it. “Wow! Fireworks! Amazing!” she yelled. But after about 10 minutes, she was ready to go in the house. Andrew was ready to be done, too. Sam went inside with them, and the nieces and nephew.

I was actually standing in a bad spot when I took these pictures. You can see the tree in the left of the shot. If you get closer to the end of our back yard, you get a pretty clear view of the entire show.

The hardest part of the night is when the show is over and folks are trying to leave. Our street is full of cars leaving from the show. Eventually, all the family left and Sam and I were able to get the kids down to sleep. It was almost midnight and they were still up!! I don’t think they’ve ever stayed up that late before.

All in all a very nice Fourth with the family. I hope you and yours had a great holiday as well.

Vacation Review

Vacation is never long enough! I was off for 5 days last week and while I had some great moments to relax, I still don’t feel like it was enough. We live in a society where people are overworked and underpaid. I don’t think anyone would mind if the United States adopted the mindset of France, Brazil, or Finland who average 30 days of paid vacation!

There were highs and lows during my week. One of the lows was not being able to get my boys for a couple days. I was supposed to pick them up on Sunday, but due to circumstances beyond my control, I wasn’t able to get them until Wednesday. I was very happy to get them prior to the Fourth of July.

Without the boys, that gave me some time to get a few things done around the house. I was able to mow the grass, straighten up the house, and work a little bit in the garage. I have had some things out there that I have wanted to go through. I have some boxes out there with books in them. I probably need to get a book case to put them in, but we really don’t have the room. Maybe I can put it in the basement??

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On Monday, my buddy Shawn messaged and said he had 18 holes of golf (with a cart) and wanted to know if I could join him. Naturally, I jumped at the chance. It’s about an hour drive to Mt. Pleasant and on the drive there, I finished listening to a book on CD I started a while back (The Innocent Man by John Grisham). There was some concern as to whether or not it was going to rain, but the weather cooperated and I had a good round. I actually made par on about 6 holes.

shot

We golfed with a couple radio guys Shawn works with. There were a lot of laughs and it was a good time. While in the pro shop, one of the guys pointed out these golf balls with a matted finish. They are brighter than your normal yellow or orange golf balls. He kept saying, “You just can’t lose these balls!” I was curious and got one. I actually hit it very well. I hit it off the tee on one of the holes on the back nine and we all saw it go slightly right through a big tree. We never saw it come down. We drove up to where the ball should have been and checked the vicinity. We had all four of us looking for this extremely bright red ball. “You just can’t lose these balls,” he said again! Well, I proved him wrong. It was lost. We really wondered if it got stuck in the tree! It was crazy!

Thanks, again, Shawn! Always a great time on the links with you!

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Thursday was the Fourth. We normally have a big bash at the house, but with all we had going on, we just didn’t get around to inviting a lot of people. We ended up with my in-laws and a couple of friends from college (Hope and Matt) and their spouses. I threw some hot dogs and brats on the grill, cut up a HUGE watermelon, we had mac and cheese, and loads to snack on.

There is a family fun day with many events. They also have a concert at the amphitheater, which we can hear from our backyard. Also from our backyard, we have great seats to watch the town’s fireworks. It is all funded through the fireman’s homecoming carnival. They also take donations in town. This year the show was about 25 minutes. After the show was over, the guests started to leave. We got the boys to bed, and we sat with our friends Hope and Kevin at the bonfire and BS’d for a while.

Great company and great conversation!

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Friday, there was a bit of drama (which is not even worthy of writing about). My wife had one big paper that needed to be written for school and she was working on that. I took the boys to play mini-golf. There was a place just south of the house that I had never been to. They have golf and ice cream. The course has a train/mine theme to it. It was actually very cool.

mine

I got the first (and my only) hole in one. Each of us got one, which always makes mini-golf fun! The wind picked up as we reached the end and we were lucky to finish before a HUGE downpour! Must not have been my day, Dimitri shot 40, Dante’ shot 42, and I shot 44. It didn’t really matter who won, though – it was about having time with the boys.

Whenever we play mini-golf, and I help them with their swing, I still flashback to those days at the Caseville Putt-Putt course. I remember my dad, or my grandpa, reaching over me and helping me with my grip and my swing. It’s one of those “generations” things – my dad and grandpa helped me, now I am helping them.

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Saturday I worked on the air at the radio station. I was on from 9a-2p. When I got off work, it was 86 degrees out. I wanted to take the boys swimming somewhere. There are a couple places that have pools where I could have gone. One of the places had an indoor pool, which kind of defeats the purpose on a hot summer day. The other place has outdoor pools, but because of the holiday weekend, they were not doing day passes (they were doing their fireworks that night).

Sam suggested this little place in Davison called Lake Callis. It’s a little recreation complex with a splash pad, pavilions, and a beach. I had never been there, so we went. It was actually a very nice place. There were many birthday parties going on that day, and it was fairly busy. We found a picnic table on the beach and went in to the water. It was not freezing (which is always nice), and the boys swam for a while.

shoes

For no reason in particular, I tend not to swim much in a lake. Maybe it’s the “lake smell” or the fact that there are fish in there, I really don’t know. This lake was man made, and as far as I could tell, there were no fish. The water was warm and swimming with the sun beating down on us was awesome! It was a bit breezy that day and when you got out of the water, it got chilly!!

It was fun to watch my boys making new friends with other kids out in the lake. I loved watching them run around at the splash pad. It was also fun to just sit at the picnic table eating Cheez-It’s and potato chips and talking about whatever they brought up. It was great father-sons time! We will definitely be going back there – we had a blast!

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Tonight is my first night back to work – and I am already ready for another vacation!!!