The White House

The White House

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Happy 4th of July

Would you believe that we went to the Ester 4th of July parade at noon with Olivia and Lucas AND I forgot my camera and phone. Must be the first time in ten years or so of going to the parade that I don’t have photos. And wouldn’t you know, I think it was the longest parade yet. (Pretty small stuff!). After the parade the kids played on the playground and then we left. Yes, we did. First time I’ve done that in over ten years as well (except for the one year we went camping with Nick, Elijah and Emily to Quartz Lake instead of going to Ester). We are normally the last family to leave the park around 10pm. You know… times have changed. There were more people there than we’ve ever seen. Everyone is supposed to bring a dish…. looking at the tables and the line of people the potluck wasn’t going to go well…. so many of those people don’t even live in this community and it was obvious they didn’t bring a dish… food was going to run out. The fire department roasted another fine hog and the burgers were plenty, but side dishes… not so much. And the other thing… we just didn’t know anyone except for a handful of people. It’s a whole younger crowd I’ve never seen before…. not people who normally go to our park. So what did we do? We left. No tug-of-war, no fire hose spray, no hog roast… we left and went fishing. And what a wonderful day it was (even without a bite).

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Before we left I whacked Sophie’s top pony off. It was ridiculous and never stayed in so she couldn’t see half the time. It hasn’t been cut properly and is rough, but she was happy to see clearly).

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I love this series. She is such a beautiful girl inside and out.

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We stopped at a campground and threw rocks in the river. It’s crazy how nice it is to “do nothing”. We are always busy doing something.

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That water is crazy cold out of the mountains. We’re tough Alaskans.

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We were laughing so hard when he sat down waiting for the log to dump him in (mean parents we are!!). And it didn’t.

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Then Olivia went out to join him and we were ready to bust a gut… ‘cause you have to admit it really would have been funny.

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Nope… it held them both!

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“Mom, take a picture of me on this rock”. Kids are so funny.

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We stopped at the Pedro Monument to watch people panning for gold where the gold has long been panned out I’m sure.

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Then we visited some friends. I wish I would have thought to take photos of the house Jon is building… it was beautiful. He’ll be in it in another week. I fell in love with his kitchen!

Jon has his own amusement park and gave the kids rides.

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They also rode the swings, but I was inside and missed that one.

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We got home, did evening animal feedings, Homer kicked back with a movie while I made pickles with a recipe sent to me by a blog reader. I’ll share all that tomorrow. It’s now 1:00am. I have 1000 things I need to do and I only seem to do about 5 a day…. I get behind-er all the time!! LOL I think I’m going to make lists. I seem to work harder when I have a list…. it becomes a competition to see if I can get everything done. I’ll let you know how it goes.

3 comments:

Nancy J said...

Down in the stream, I wonder what was the imagination in their minds?Do they not feel the COLD water???Those family photos are " priceless" and show what a wonderful 4th July day you had. Cheers from Jean

FlowerLady Lorraine said...

What a great relaxing day you ended up having. So beautiful, peaceful and 'quiet'. It was truly just what you all needed.

Today is a new day, be thankful and enjoy all the projects on your list.

Love and hugs ~ FlowerLady

Kim@Snug Harbor said...

Gayle, that looked like a wonderful day all the way around, but the pictures of the little ones fishing were my favorite by far! Happy 4th!