Two Days of a One Day Holiday

The chick's look after playing in the garden.

My son wanted us to celebrate July 4th with him, Jerri, and the Chicklets at his second home, located in a compound at the prison where he works. Youngest daughter, Jami, and her family had made other plans for the 4th so he decided to move their cookout and fireworks display to Saturday.

Earlier in the week, my cousin had mentioned that she and her granddaughter might go with us to my son's on Friday, so I had to call her Thursday to tell her he had changed it to Saturday but if she wanted, we'd throw something on the grill on Friday. She said her daughter and hubby were due home that evening and she'd see what the plans were.

On Thursday, when I'd taken Zach to Tae Kwon Do, I bought all the fixings for grilled hamburgers and smoked sausages for a crowd, figuring I could freeze what wasn't needed if no one came over.

July 4th dawned and I still didn't know who, if anyone, would be coming for dinner. James had to go to the farm for a few hours that morning and when he came back I told him we'd probably just cook a few things on the grill for us (myself, James, and Zach).

Around 11ish, I was outside watering the flowers and Zach came out with the phone. It was my cousin's daughter to tell me they'd be there in about an hour. While I was on the phone, Bubbie, Jerri, the chicklets, and Abby pulled into the drive.

We ended up with 14 for dinner. We had a lot of fun talking and laughing and stuffing our faces.
Then my cousin, Judy, got sick (she'd been fighting a virus for a couple of days) and she and her family decided they needed to go home so she could take some medicine and lie down.

Just before dark, Jerri took the 3 girls in to dump them into the tub for baths before time to go see a firework display her Mom was having at the fireworks stand she owns. After they were all clean and sparkly, they left and took Zach with them, then they dropped him back off on their way back to the compound after the fireworks were done.

Nanaw babysitted with the baby robin while they were gone.

We went to bed soon after Zach got back home to get a little rest before day two of the celebration.

The horses over at the prison kicking up a little dust over the little storm that blew in.

Yesterday I woke up, sipped some coffee, then made a pasta salad to take to my son's. I got my camera packed, remembered the mosquito spray, and off we went at around noon. We stopped in a little town on the way to pick up extra buns, chips, and a few drinks, and arrived at the "free line" a little after noon.

We really had a good time sitting around shooting the bull and sipping on a couple of beers. The burgers were great, Jerri's potato salad was delicious, the baked beans were yummy, and the eggs (full of devil that the kids had stuffed) turned out just right.

Beans, giving her hoppie sugars.

Right after we arrived, Jerri called me into the kitchen to show me something. She said she'd left it there, in the fridge, after she'd discovered it, just so I could see for myself. I bent down to look into the fridge, and there, sitting on a bag of broccoli was a poor, little, dead frog. It seems that our Beans decided one of her hoppies needed a cool spot to rest. He was resting alright, in Peace.

My son decided he was going to do his fireworks the way the professionals do, by wiring the fuses to longer fuses so they'd blow in a controlled sequence. He and his buddy, Jeremy, and Patrick (Jerri's niece's boyfriend) worked for a good while getting everything set up.

It finally got dark enough for the fun to begin. We see them huddled around one end of their handiwork, a little spark of ignition, 3 big ol boys running like hell to get out of the way, then,

BLINDING LIGHT, BIG BOOM! Smoke boils over everyone seated a safe distance (we hoped) away.

I'm checking to see if my teeth are still in my mouth since the percussion had made them rattle, and we hear giggling and laughter from the "professionals" and they're saying, "whoops, that was a dud." Dud????

Then, they huddle again, sparks, run like hell, BLINDING LIGHT, BOOM!!!!

After the smoke clears, they sneak back over to their handiwork, and we hear laughter, then my son calls over to us, "hahahaha, we put them in upside down". (he'll have 2 craters to fill in out there today, I bet they felt those rumbles across the way at the prison!)

After they figured that out, the rest of the fireworks were awesome and I really, really, had a great time.

Krysten was busy telling on her sisters for something they'd done. :-)