Fourth of July

We had a great time on the fourth.  I am late with pics!  But here are a few.......

You can be sure Grandad remembered his boys on the fourth and came through in a big way!  Fireworks, anyone?

Mom provided marvelous ribs, potato salad, cole slaw, and brownies. We filled in with hamburgers and fruit salad and cake.  Tons of good food!

We ate a LOT.

Then it was fireworks time.

So thrilling.

Pretty!

Marty took lovely fireworks photos.

The boys had to pretend they weren't THAT excited.

But they were. And they will be again next year.

Happy 4th!

Lakin' It

Today was another scorcher.  I dropped the boys off for laser tag and pinball and fancy video games at the bowling alley, then went next door to the gym and had a much-needed workout.  Afterwards, we had lunch, then headed to the lake to cool off.

We had rafts to make the experience more enjoyable.

All three immediatley headed for the boundary---the yellow rope.  That was the entire point, after all....to go straight to the limit and hover there.

They came back to shore several times, then back out again.

It was so darn hot we only lasted an hour.  But it was the highlight of their day.  It is worth the mountains of sand in the car, the tons of prep, the drive out there, etc, just to see the delight they take in such a tiny portion of real live lake to swim in.  These childish joys won't last forever and I dread the days my boys become blase about such things. (Or leave me at home to go to the lake with friends.)   So I'm trying to enjoy it while it lasts.  I mean....look at that smile!

We'll be back!

Water Balloons

Picture another long hot day, spent largely indoors being inactive and petrfiying.  Fat cells are accumulating, blood is stagnating, and worst of all, the realization has come that the worst heat of summer hasn't even begun.  Everyone is tired of Monopoly, crafts, and TV.   Nobody wants to go to the pool.

So what do we do instead?

Water balloons!!

Yep, good old Wal-Mart delivers once again.  While grocery shopping today we passed a display of containers of water balloons.  Five hundred baloons for five dollars.

Sam the math whiz quickly figured this came out to "one cent for each balloon!!"  The boys were thrilled, we bought the balloons, and came home.  They ran outside and jumped right into wet and wild mayhem.

I honestly thought they'd get bored after about twenty minutes, but they remained out there nearly an hour and a half.

There was a lot of laughing and shrieking and running around.

The boys came in drenched and feeling peppy.

I have a feeling tomorrow will be another water balloon day!!

And as a side note....

would I stand in the way of creativity?  Of course not.  So when Benny wants a mess of cups so he can create a "tower," I let him have them.  And here it is:

Spectacular!