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Happy belated Independence Day. Hope everyone's went off as seamlessly as ours did. The kids slept later than I did & then came in my room & we talked until everyone was hungry & then made those pilsbury cinnamon rolls that come in a can with the orange flavored icing, I had bought 2 cans because everyone always fights about who gets the most & there was finaly enough for everyone. (always a nice thing when you've got more than 1 kid) I assembled my new grill, now, I knew it was a table top grill but it was really very small & I was a little worried that shish kebabs for 6 would not fit but at that point, what could I do? I'd picked the grill I'd picked & I had no other options! Then I weed whacked the yard, Chrissie had mowed it recently but the ride on mower just doesn't do much on the edges, & there are a lot of edges, around the house, around the driveway & the path & the parking spot, around all the trees & the shed. it was a hot job & after downing a quart of water in one long gulp, (miss 10 was scandalized at that, she had brought it to me & when I finished drinking the entire cup I handed it back to her & said 'would you get me another?') the weed whacking took me to the garden & I whacked all the paths to keep the weeds from encroaching on my plants,
but of course, they were already starting so then I spent annother hour or so weeding & staking my green beans & peas, I ran out of stakes & string before I finished with the tomatoes, during one of my many breaks I was talking to 16 (Who mostly sat under a tree & watched me work but did go get me things from the shed & the house when I needed them.) & I realized that the trees are close enough that I could string the hammock I've had for nearly 10 years between them so that was my next project when I'd done all I could in the hot sun of the garden. Then both girls & I skewered all the meat & veggies for the shish kabobs. It's rare that I can get them to do anything together with out 16 being deliberately mean to her sister but I guess for the holiday they were being nice, to me at least, because there's nothing I like better than when they are nice to each other. Chrissie & Kevin were scheduled to come but we weren't sure when & we were texting back & forth during this time, the night before, on my way home from work I had gone into town & gotten more meat & some other things I'd forgotten to get the last time I was at the store, including marshmallows & the store was sold out, they had the mini marshmallows like you use for hot chocolate but no big ones for toasting. Mr 6's favorite part is the marshmallows, he likes them toasted & untoasted so after having the store manager, who happened to be roaming the asiles picking up things people had left in random places & returning them to their correct places, check in the back & under all the registers for any forgotten bags of marshmallows I got mr 6 a bag of the little ones. When I told Chrissie about it she said they could pick up some regular ones on their way up & they did, along with a watermelon, more fireworks & macaroni & potato salad. I started the grill a little later than planned but Chris & Kevin were later than expected & it pretty much all worked out right, I'd just started 5 or 6 skewers on the grill when they rolled up. We played Balderdash, talked & tried our best to delay the kids with the fireworks burning, at dusk I let them light some sparklers & morning glories & Chrissie & Kevin lit a few of the fireworks Kevin had brought, as it actualy really got dark enough to start lighting stuff up a big thunderstorm rolled in, with heavy winds,
lightning & thunder right over head & pouring rain. after the lightning & thunder had passed over the kids all ran around in it & got soaking wet. then about an hour later it had passed completely & it was full dark with a wet ground, we lit more fireworks, sparklers etc. much to the dog's annoyance, she didn't care for them at all & barked at them & tried to bite them constantly, actualy really funny to watch! 
We didn't even come close to using them all up before people started getting overwrought & yelling & whining, by 1030 Chrissie & I had shut it down & everyone but Miss 16 & I were in bed relaxing, 16 & I watched a movie together(Terminal Velocity- If I hadn't dvr'd it for free during a hbo free preview weekend I would've been annoyed because it was not a very good movie!) & so to bed at 1 am, with 16 complaining all the way that I never do anything with her & won't I stay up a little longer, I'm afraid I couldn't do it though & anyway we'd spent the majority of the day together.
Today, for something to do, when the little ones came in my room this morning we looked at our picture album from the last vacation in Massachusetts, this reminded me that I had 5-6 disposable cameras still full of film we'd shot on various holidays & trips over the last year that I still hadn't developed & I knew both my mother & grandmother wanted pictures, I'm afraid the camera in the cell phone has pretty much taken over my life when it comes to picture taking. That's ok in a lot of ways, I love my online Photo album but my grandmother doesn't do internet or email or any of it. so I have to have hard copies & I have a printer but have been too cheap to spring for ink, also, the pictures thru a regular printer, I know, would not be that good looking. So we took a trip, not to C'burg though, I'm looking at 5 10 hour days in a row starting tommorow, before we leave on our trip & the last thing I wanted to do was go to C'burg! If I'd thought it through we should have gone to Radford because we could've stopped at my Brother-in-law's house & dropped off his son's birthday present, but I didn't think about that early enough & so, instead we drove in the opposite direction to Galax & went to walmart there & had 1 hour photos done of all 6 cameras. We picked up toothbrush travel holders & a bunch of little things like that which we'd forgotten, 16 insisted her bag she carried her school books in most of last year was inadequate to carry a couple of books, a sketch pad & other entertainments to Mass in. So we picked up a Backpack for her with the understanding that it will be her new, for school, backpack too. & miss 10 insisted her bikinis were mismatched & she can't find the top to one, the bottom to annother & the bathing suit is too old. (walmart had bathing suits on clearance for 7 bucks) & mr 6 was pleased to find his favorite Thomas book which he read to shreds a couple of years ago, on the book racks so everyone was happy even me, I got a cd which one of my original favorite bands, Def Leppard, put out which is all remakes of songs they love, I only knew 4 or 5 of the songs but at least one (the one getting airplay) is one of my all time favorite songs by the original artist so I 'had' to have it. Back home & I've been trying to get myself & the little one's clothes packed for the vacation, not an easy task since I found mr6 had not bothered to bring any of his dirty clothes out of his closet for a couple of weeks! I keept telling him to bring out his dirty clothes every time I started a wash & he'd just keep picking up whatever was on the floor & leaving the stuff in the closet alone. I didn't realize it until I went in there to get more clothes out of his drawers for the packing & his drawers were empty, funny, I had been wondering why he kept wearing the same few outfits over & over, with boys though, that sort of thing isn't unusual I'm told, they get a liking for a certain shirt or pair of pants & you have to peel it off them, they'll wear it until it falls off of them or you can smell them 15 yards away! So I got on here while the clothes were drying & now have to fold all the laundry & pack. Packing though, that's always fun, the excitement of knowing you'll be somewhere new when you wear the clothes again is such fun!
Posted by Becky
at 9:47 PM EDT
