Fourth of July

Last week, we had the pleasure of visiting Josh's family in Oklahoma. We had fun spending some quality time with them. Josh got to hang out with his brother for the weekend and he had a great time. It's nice for them to get to see each other because they are so close. Honestly, I think they miss each other more than they let on. We used to live about five minutes from each other about 3 years ago. Now there is a whopping four hour gap between our happy little families and the boys barely get to see each other. It can be a hard thing for us to take Alex just about anywhere these days. He seems to have some kind of breathing issue whenever we travel due to allergies and asthma. I hope that the mountain of medication he is on will change that over time. We shall see.

So on to the week of the Fourth of July. Early in the week, we went to our local firework tent and bought some snappers. You know the things...you toss them on the ground and get a nice little *pop!* They are perfect for kids because they pose very little threat to them. No burnt finger or loss of eyebrow risk involved. Alex loves them. He enjoys throwing them and stomping on them.
Naturally, Abby didn't want to be left out of the festivities. She was just as keen on throwing them as her big brother was. Of course, they rarely had enough oomph behind them to explode, but she ran over to them and tried to stomp on them too. She laughed every time one would snap. It was adorable.

That brings us to the weekend. We set off for Oklahoma. Alex was beyond thrilled to see his cousins, Lauren, Linsey, and Kate. Lauren is the oldest. As most parents will tell you, there is something engraved in every young child that makes them gravitate to the oldest children in the room. Something about them is awe inspiring. Alex and Lauren became quite good little buddies during the weekend. They played together constantly and were always holding hands. Alex is still talking about her today. Lauren was just wonderful with him too. She got him to play 'grocery store' and 'house' and all sorts of little imaginary games. I think Alex will miss her dearly now. He talks about her as much as he talks about his other cousins, Jamie and Linda, who are also quite a bit older than him.

My father-in-law smoked a mass load of meat over the weekend. That's great for the adults, but to kids, there is nothing more evil than random chunks of meat. So they ended up dining on ever-faithful cereal most of the time. Cereal is the food that most parents can gaurantee their child will eat at least once a day if given the opportunity.


All the kids ended up enjoying each others company. There were the off moments when two of them would become temporary mortal enemies, but after five minutes of cool-down time, they would become bosom buddies once again. Alex even got to go with Lauren and Linsey to watch Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs in the theater. Josh and Ben took them. He had a lot of fun for his first movie on the big screen. I'm glad that he got to enjoy that experience. It gives me hope for future movie outings.


Abby wasn't smitten with anyone in particular (except Mommy of course), but she did enjoy tagging along whenever she could. She tried her best to keep up and got a kick out watching them play.

So other than the weather, the weekend was great. It decided to rain for a good chunk of the time we were there. The kids all passed out early on the Fourth and it left us with no other option but to miss the local firework display. I will say that I missed that. Maybe it makes me a big redneck, but I love a good fireworks display. We always had fireworks to shoot off when I was a kid. Nothin' better than spending your hard earned money on a bunch of cheap fireworks and then blowing it all up. It is a bit like flushing your money down the toilet, but hey...that's how I grew up. We always had fun though. I think Alex would have loved watching them this year. There's always next year though. I hope you all had a great Fourth of July too!