Okay so, y'all totally flatter me. I got questions on fb and instagram about Nathan's birthday cake, which, haaaaa, when y'all see that it's basically a glorified box mix that just got stacked with some other stuff during several trips to the freezer, you will be less impressed.
But here it is anyway, behold the ice cream cake info: 1.) Make the cakes. I made three 9-inch cake layers. I just used the sour cream white cake recipe I always do, which starts with a box mix. He requested blue, so we made it blue. And then I cut off the tops to flatten them, and frozen them in freezer bags for several hours. (Confession: I burned the sh!t out of the first three layers while I was making his birthday video and not paying attention, so I had to do them over the next day. Don't do that.)
2.) Layer with ice cream. I softened some ice cream (half an hour, til you can almost stir it) and layered it with the cakes in an 8-inch springform pan. (The internet told me to do a deep springform one inch smaller than the cake pans, since they shrink a bit when cooking, and you want a tight fit for the springform mold. Do that.) (The internet also told me to put a sheet of parchment paper down in the bottom of the pan before stacking the cakes in, to make it easier to move to a plate later. Do that too.)
The top layer of cake stacked sort of on top of the pan, which was fine. Then I wrapped it all up in saran wrap and froze it for another few hours. I don't have a picture of what that looked like (I only took these pics for soliciting text praise, not recipe posting) ("recipe" hahahaha *wipes tear*) so just use your imagination: top cake layer sticking out on top, it's fine. 3.) Whipped cream frosting. The internet told me (are you sensing a theme here?) to use just whipped cream as frosting that buttercream doesn't taste good with ice cream cake, since it's much sweeter and it's jarring. Also, butter doesn't stick to frozen ice cream very well, because duh.
So I made some whipped cream and sweetened it a bit (a few spoonfuls of powdered sugar) and added some vanilla, and it worked great. I frosted it and stuck it back in the freezer.
4.) Ganache. In one of the ice cream cake videos we watched, Nathan saw one that was finished with a ganache, and he wanted that. But the video was very unhelpful ("and then, frost and top however you like, and serve chilled!") and so I did a LOT of brainstorming on ganache. I needed it thin enough to pour over the top (yet thick enough not to totally run off), yet not so warm that it would make the whipped cream fall apart. And not so sweet that it would taste jarring, like I had been warned about the buttercream.
So! I used bittersweet chocolate, chopped it up super finely so it would melt fast without the cream needing to get too hot, and then I used two parts cream to one part chocolate. And I stirred it while it cooled forever and ever (seriously like an hour) before I poured it over the top. It worked great! Not too sweet, just the right thickness, I give myself an A+.
5.) Sprinkle and serve. I put sprinkles on and put it back in the freezer til it was time to eat. We only thawed it about five minutes before we tried to put candles in, and that wasn't enough. It needs 10-15 minutes at least, to be soft enough to cut and serve.
Nathan loved it; it's exactly what he wanted, so it's a win for that alone.
I'm having one of those bad mom mornings where the kids are up too early and I haven't slept more than a few hours a night in five nights, and the bickering is too much, and when someone cries because they need me, it makes me feel angry instead of compassionate.
One of those mornings where parenting looks ugly on me.
I'm so tired.
And nothing about this season is particularly tiring (aside from bad sleep, everything (except the bickering) has been fine all summer, and fine this weekend in particular. AND YET. Mean mommy is out, in full force. I am so irritated and so done. I was done by 7:30 this morning, to be honest.
By the time I had chased each child to their room (where they stayed) (unheard of) and closed my own door to listen to a podcast for an hour, and then delivered Nathan to his day camp (the drive was in total silence, there and back, the kids didn't even ask for anything from the drive through when I stopped for a sweet tea) (!) I realized... I have fully scared them into submission today.
Charlotte dug something out of her hamper so she could wear my favorite color.
Nathan packed all the healthiest things into his lunch box for camp and didn't even ask for a brownie (I would have said yes, for the record).
Anneliese has been holding Hattie close and walking around quiet as a church mouse.
Y'all, that doesn't feel good. It sucks. I know it's okay to have mornings where we are hurt and frustrated at each other, but damn, compliance earned by fear of my anger just feels hard and gross. It's not the first time it's happened, but it's still a gut check every time.
There's no conclusion or happy ending takeaway here, other than maybe to name and own that it's not always sunshine and roses and making the best of the chaos. Some people are good at that, or at least good at telling people that, but I'm not always.
I'm crabby at them and mad at myself and BLAH. Some days are just hard.
Unrelated to anything, other than BLAH in general: Nathan banged his head really hard on a door frame last night and it was a pretty giant goose egg pretty quickly. He's fine this morning (the most fine of everyone here actually) but it sure looks painful, doesn't it?
Send us all some virtual forehead kisses today? We need them.
Okay so amongst a handful of other more... typical eight-year-old presents, like lego sets and minecraft shirts and and a toy robot kit and space stickers for his ceiling, he also got a long-awaited... holding pillow.
This is a thing I didn't even know was a thing until the past few years.
They're just those slinky squishy pillows you see in various places, apparently Brookstone has the best ones - fom pillows, they call them - but they're all over. Anyway Another Nathan has had one for years, calls it a holding pillow, doesn't like to sleep without it (whoops I just told the internet about that) (seriously though he even travels with it). So when he moved, and needed to fly back with limited suitcase space, he asked if he could have a holding pillow here, in the guest house, so he didn't have to pack one when he visits. WELL OF COURSE. Easiest thing ever, to make our favorite guest comfy. Anyway, long story short, we got one, it's kind of cool, and now everybody in my house wants a piece of that thing. I used it in the guest house to prop my book arm up when I would go over there to read. Then it made its way to my bed for leaning purposes, or head propping while watching TV. Then the kids started fighting over who got to hug it and sleep with it.
Y'ALL. I mean it's fun and soft and I like it too, but... it's just a pillow. Not even a pillow. A pillow-thing. So in April, one of Anneliese's friend's big sisters gave her this one as a hand-me-down. She was thinking Anneliese would like it just because it's a silly rainbow thing but she had no idea the pure joy of her having her very own holding pillow. (!!!) (?)
Can I say it again? It's just a pillow. JUST A PILLOW. It costs $15. We can own as many of these as we want! So when Nathan wanted his own too (SHOCKING), which he has "casually" mentioned for months now, I took Anneliese to the mall to pick one out for him. She chose a bright blue one, and I swear it was the happiest thing he opened on his birthday.
And thus ends today's episdoe of You Can Never Predict The Random Things Kids Will Go Nuts For.
We had a sweet little pool party for Nathan on Sunday afternoon for his birthday. He had no specific theme requests this year, so the theme was, come over and swim at our house and have cake. EASY AND FUN.
I made favor bags with treats like candy and sunglasses and goggles and some mincraft toys and origami-type folding crafts. These bags were nothing fun or fancy like the lego or dinosaur or rainbow ones but I lined them up on the mantle like always, because THAT IS A THING I DO OKAY.
I got some color-your-own beach balls for the kids* to color as everyone was getting here. (*For me. Okay? Fine. I wanted to color a beach ball. The kids liked it too so hush.)
I ordered a variety of inflatable things to "decorate"(/play with) in the pool, including a bunch of adorable beachballs and a dolphin ring toss. And a cruise ship because obviously.
Charlotte hoarded them mostly to herself. (Which makes sense because in my Big Book of Facts About Boolers, on page 16 it says that boolers love balls. So.)
But the kids all played together in the pool for a while, I checked out the sexy lifeguard with a few up-downs, and all was well.
And then Nathan opened presents and we had an ice cream cake, which is what he requested, which I had never made before in my life, which I wasn't ready to outsource to baskin robbins, so we watched some videos and we tried it. (Post about that later.) It came out great!
(Yes, that is corn growing back there behind his head, by the pool deck. Also a post for later. To be filed under: OH MARKY.) Speaking of Oh Marky, a day after the party there are still balloons stuck in our tree out front, and Mark keeps doing THIS to get them down, and we keep joking that this is the only use a southerner has for hockey sticks. It makes me laugh. (If you cant see the embedded video, click here to watch on YouTube.) No, I don't know why we own a hockey stick in the first place. Someone asked me and... I honestly don't know. I have no good answer. I don't even have a bad answer. KEINE AHNUNG.
I can't believe it's true, but baby Nathan is officially eight today! When I look at his newborn pictures (as I do every year on his birthday, don't we all do that?) it is harder and harder for me to reconcile that tiny little boy with the puckered mouth and half-closed eyelids and mess of dark hair, with the blonde serious bright boy in our house today.
Where in the world have these years gone?
As always, here is a birthday video of Nathan over the last year:
(If you can't see the embedded video, click here to watch it on YouTube.)
And, as always, the links for all the previous ones. Oh, my memories. My little one, who made me a mommy.
Hey sweet buddy, as much as we loved you that first July 26th, we love you even more every birthday and every day and every year that has passed since then. Happy birthday, dear Nathan.
Okay so I don't think I ever blogged about this, but I fell in the shower several months ago, the first weekend in May, and I bruised my ribs pretty badly and they hurt for weeks. I couldn't carry Ali well, I couldn't get dressed easily, I couldn't steer the car without pain, I couldn't even take a crap like normal. My whole torso hurt.
Anyway I texted with my mom and she helped me know what to do and how long it would last, and it eventually went away and felt totally better, but I had also landed hard on my wrist in that fall, which at the time hurt, but not nearly as bad as the ribs, so I didn't think much about it. But in the months that followed, as my ribs got better, my wrist kept not getting better, and it wasn't until I did a whole week at Montreat and had outside eyes asking me things like why I couldn't open jars or doorknobs or hold my hair dryer right, etc etc etc, that I realized how much it was still... off.
So, I went to the orthopedist and heeeeey I fractured it! In two places! And then compensated for that pain with all the wrong types of wrist movements, and thus have inflamed cartilage and tendons and that's what's cause my pain now and ANYWAY I am in a cast for five weeks. Plus some undetermined more weeks of splinting and therapy and I don't even know, I'm tired and frustrated and over it already.
I will say this: cast technology has come a long way since my last broken arm in the 90s. This one is in two pieces, and they still mold it around your arm with hot water, but instead of plaster strips it's sheets of pliable plastic. (They still do plaster casts too, but he asked if we were a Water People and I almost fell out of my chair laughing. YES PLEASE I NEED WATERPROOF.) Anneliese was with me and she talked me into the neon yellow velcro instead of just white or black, which is what I was leaning towards.
I'm kind of glad she did, because with the black I would have really looked like a storm trooper. But with the bright yellow, I'm like a cool 80s neon storm trooper.
Just kidding, I am putting a positive spin on it but actually I hate it. If I had typed this post on Tuesday when it went on, it would have just been cuss words. I'm better now, but still hate it, so here is a list of things (so far) that suck with one arm in a cast/splint/storm trooper outfit:
1.) driving while drinking anything
2.) driving while talking on the phone
3.) tampons
4.) holding a phone in general
5.) bras
6.) buttoning pants
7.) face washing
8.) sex
9.) carrying a purse (while also holding kiddie hands)
10.) pit shaving
11.) pushing a grocery cart
12.) typing this blog post
I heard someone say last week that one of the great things about Montreat is that every year youth conference is different, a brand new experience; yet somehow it also feels just the same as always, so familiar, and known. It's the most true sentence I've heard in a while. This year was just lovely for me up there. It's the third year in a row I have gone, so that familiar thing is totally real for me now. Just driving into the gate and climbing up the million steps to the top floor of the inn, or hiking down the path by the lake to go to church or my small group, it all makes me feel warm and homey and happy.
This was Anneliese's first year to go be a clubbie, and she did just great. It amazes me how quickly she makes friends and finds delight in new people. She loved her club kids and her counselors and swimming and singing new songs and her group even got to go do the most! fun! activity! ever! which was... walking to a field by the main entrance road, and waving to people driving in. They made it very official and called them the Montreat Wavers (listed on their official schedule) and I almost fell over laughing but she delighted in it, so, okay.
(Isn't that exactly the kind of thing this child would delight in? I mean.)
The first few days really pushed her limits on exhaustion and tears and so much walking, but she adjusted and by the end of the week she was an old pro, save the miserable window between her nap (when I was in my daily afternoon meeting of small group leaders) and our dinner (scooting into the dining room in the last opening minutes, so to maximize her rest time), when she was hella crabby. But! Other than that! Easy! Great first week of Montreat!
I think I have decided that Montreat is really good for the kids. I mean, not that that's a novel idea; it hit me the first year with just Nathan how good it was for him to be a bit out of his element and try new things and new foods and new people. But this year I felt it in an even bigger different way. Both Nathan and Anneliese can have so much freedom there, freedom that our normal life doesn't afford. With Nathan, I can just set a time/place to meet, and let him go off on his own, and trust that he will be there. He knows which roads are too busy to cross, he knows which people will help him, staff nametags, etc, not to mention the whole place is crawling with teenagers who are high on being Good Kids and tend to flock towards him as some kind of mascot. (You should have seen the teenagers lined up to play cornhole against him in the barn one night.)
And when we go to a playground or the dining room or sit down outside or wherever, both of them can just... run free. Into the woods, not in my line of sight, whatever. I know this doesn't sound novel to those of us who grew up in the 80s (or who live in small towns), but this is... not like our urban Raleigh life. It just isn't. It will come, in time, but we aren't there yet at home. Montreat is a really good place for them (and me) to get used to some kiddie freedom, and they loved it. They walk around and enjoy it like they belong. Which, of course, they do.
Anyway, the whole point of the conference isn't the kids, but the youth, and getting to be a small group leader, and bonding with the other adults who are there to do the same. And this year was as great for that as always.
Another Nathan (who roomed with Nathan in an adjoining room again this year) was there as a shadow (he's running this whole conference for two weeks next year!) and it was the most chill I have ever seen him at Montreat. Like a vacation! He showed up several times at the ends of my sessions, with coffees in hand. He met Nathan at meeting points. He pedaled Anneliese (and all of us) on a sparkly paddleboat.
We all went for a barbecue dinner. We had a lovely week together. (And a lovely few days in Raleigh before that.) It was a super friendship bonding time for us, in a special place. Remembering last year on the edge of the cliff of his move, and all the work and stress and angst about that, it just felt so nice and easy this year.
And my small group was incredible. We had one hard day full of hard confessions and some things that needed Adult Intervention, but they were well-poised to support each other in it, since they had bonded so quickly at the beginning of the week. They are smart and thoughtful people, these teenagers. And I know I say it every year, but anyone who feels cyncial about kids this age has not watched them stand in a room and look each other in the eye and pray to God to give thanks for other people in that room, specifically by name, people who they only met mere days ago. It's amazing.
So yeah, it was a wonderful week again. It's always hard to leave. After we took Another Nathan to the airport, we came back to load up our own stuff and the kids wanted one last Huckleberry ice cream, and Anneliese spent many weeks' worth of allowance on a neon green sweatshirt blanket that says Montreat on it, so we drove away both happy and sad.
Happy July 22nd! It's Nathan's due date! Again! (No, I have not let go of due dates yet. Hush.)
I am full of feelings today, like every year, remembering eight years ago in the final days of being pregnant, before I was officially a mom. This year for the first time, it feels far away, a long time ago, a previous lifetime. Even just last year I would have said it felt like just yesterday, and now in some ways it does, but mostly it feels now like... a memory.
Pregnancy and babies seem far from my life now, suddenly. It's good and bad. Post for another day. Anyway! *brisk clap*
Sweet Nathan will be eight years old this weekend, y'all. EIGHT.
At almost eight he is still into ships, and dinosaurs, and reading anything non-fiction unless I pull teeth to talk him into a novel. Actually, speaking of teeth, he still hasn't lost any since waaaay last May, over a year ago, and one the Christmas before that. I suspect this time next year he will have a mouth full of holes, or maybe even a mouth full of grownup teeth, so this might be the last of his birthday pictures where he looks like a... little kid. *sob*
He is indeed still little; he actually hasn't gotten any taller since last year, and only one pound heavier, which hopefully doesn't mean anything other than 1- he has Mark's tiny tween genes for being the class shrimp, and 2- he is due for a growth spurt any moment now. He is strong though, and can run fast for a long time, and swim for hours, so his skinny little ribs must have some muscle around them.
He is still a tiny pedant, holding people to their time estimates down to the minute, and correcting anything he perceives as a mistake (I sent him a weather channel video of the biggest ship in the world, and was informed that the biggest ship in the world is actually in a different class and company, and *sigh*) (we are working on politeness). We have no idea where he got that know-it-all gene I MEAN REALLY NO IDEA.
He takes himself and others very seriously, but he also has a playful side when he wants to be silly (and then suddenly acts much younger than his age). He is starting to ask to be into The Things of Older Kids - movies he hears about from friends, and video games, and such. We had one painfully awkward but necessary conversation about birds and bees and the ways life is made, after he learned some wrong things on the playground. (Already!) (I KNOW.) (Recording here for posterity's sake: his notion of all of this came thirdhand via friends about Jack and Rose in the engine room on the Titanic YES REALLY.)
Some days it feels like we are on the brink of a new world, one I am in no rush to get to, yet one I know we can't and shouldn't keep him from.
He is a hard worker and gladly does chores and homework and helps his sisters. He remains one of the most generally compliant kids I have ever known. He loves one on one attention and outings, and is crabby when he feels unseen, and would get lost in internet videos about minecraft, and ship histories, and drawing classes, for hours if we'd let him.
He the moodiest person in our house and also probably the kindest. He is cautious and needs to observe things before he tries them, but once he tries something he keeps pushing until he can do it well; he is driven. He tells funny jokes and horrible ones, is ever better at the cello and ever more tone deaf when he sings, and he writes beautifully.
He is a tiny hoarder of all things sentimental: scraps of paper and drawings and postcards and things other people would consider trash are worth keeping, for him. They get pinned to his bulletin board or stuck in boxes and notebooks, or folded and taped and made into new creations, meshed together with legos and stuffed animals for some world he has dreamed up and decided to build. He is an introvert in the truest sense of the definition: only talks about things important to him, not good at surface level conversation, wants and needs lots of time alone to play and re-charge, and will play happily in his room for long windows of time before emerging to show us what he's been building or working on.
He is a night owl like me, and to wind down in the evenings we usually lie in my bed to read by ourselves together. He is also somehow an early riser, motivated more by the promise of having the house to himself, quiet for breakfast and his favorite youtube channels, than by extra sleep. (He is nothing like me in that way.)
He likes yogurt and candy and hot chocolate and coffee and cheese and crackers and oatmeal and mashed potatoes with gravy. He loves snuggling. He adores his sisters. He texts people the most precious and lovely parts of his heart, things he could or would never say out loud.
He is a wonderful little human, and it's an honor to be his mom, the one who made me a mom, almost eight years ago. Amazing.
1.) Reading outside. I make such a habit of sitting or walking outside for a while every day (sunshine is good for my soul, also it's my hippie Sleep Plan attempt at making the days bright and the nights dim, in my never-ending quest to sleep better), and often it's to read, that it seems the kids have picked up on the habit. On library day a few weeks ago when I chased them outside, they did... this.
I tried not to look at their pillows on the ground and just decided to feel happy they were all reading and quiet.
2.) Better swimming. I can't believe that this time last year, none of the kids would even put their face in the water happily, much less let go and swim on their own. Now Nathan and Anneliese are both little fishies, with endless energy and bravery, and Charlotte (with her puddle jumper on) will go anywhere in the pool too, for hours. Until she's exhausted, clearly.
when you're swimming with your thumb in your mouth, it's time to be done
Nathan has gotten to be a really decent diver, too! I'm legit impressed with this. Mad props to his teacher whoever that was. *brushes shoulders*
(If you can't see the video embedded above, click here to watch on YouTube.)
There was a time when I was worried about owning a pool, and now I never want to live without one again.
3.) Duck Donuts. We found a new (to us) donut place where every donut is made to order. Which means you pick your frosting or glaze, and whatever sprinkes/nuts/sugar topping you want, and they serve it to you warm and ooey gooey with a fork.
I'm not a huge donut person, but this is really excellent. RECOMMEND.
4.) Noemi. The fabulous Noemi came over (and we went once to her house) and, well, fabulous Noemi is fabulous. She is fun and funny and her kids behave and are polite and adorable and she's just generally excellent to have around, and she better watch her ass or I will smother in my attempts to conquer her friendship heart and she will have to awkwardly pretend she doesn't know me. Not that it will come to that.
5.) Yay marriage! Mark and I finally had that anniversary date we missed on father's day. And it ended up being on the same day that marriage equality passed nationwide. What a great day to celebrate marriage, amiright? Cheers, everyone! Everyone!
And happy dozen years to the best person I could hope to share this life with.
6.) Booler bruise. Charlotte fell off her bed, and apparently she landed on her... chin? I don't even know with this girl. She is my delicate flower who bruises and breaks and seems to fragile, or maybe just klutzy, or yeah I don't know. Another booler injury for the record books. It turned all sorts of colorful shades for several weeks before it finally went away.
7.) Paper chain. Anneliese made a paper chain to count down the days to Montreat. There are links on that chain with labels like "grandpa" and "Another Nathan" and "skate camp" to mark the time and plans for the month. I guess this is as good a calendar as any, when you're five?
When she and Nathan were at Grandpa's house, Charlotte took over tearing a link each day. She took her responsibility very seriously. (And yes I am aware of the irony of letting any of my kids, especially my breakable delicate flower stand on the very ledge from where Anneliese fell and smashed her face all those years ago.)
8.) Ice skating camp. Yes, Anneliese did a day camp for ice skating. We had her signed up for something different, and then it got changed, and then she reminded me she had liked skating when we tried it back in February, so she suggested ice skating camp instead. Um, okay.
It's the most random thing. We are not a people of ice. Or skates. But I do love about her that she is willing to try new things she knows nothing about, and assumes it will be fine. I like that she wants to do her own thing. And she did great, made new friends, and by the end of the week she was super proud of herself for being able to skate without holding on to anything.
On the last day, they had the option to skate a little "program" where they choose a song and skate around by themselves for the parents. She thought she was doing it, but apparently she didn't sign up in time, so she didn't, and was sad, but then when I saw how she "skates" I realized she could never have done a whole song:
(If you can't see the video embedded above, click here to watch it on YouTube.)
But! So proud! She is so proud, y'all.
9.) Two-piece swimsuit. Her best friend has a two-piece tankini, and she asked for one on repeat forever, so we found one that isn't triangle cut on top, doesn't have a skimpy back, doesn't show her belly, and comes in rainbow colors. It was a quest. She is now happy.
10.) Bee stings. One more about Anneliese, apparently. Mark and I went to dinner tonight and the kids were playing at Nick and Barbara's house, and apparently there were suddenly bees, and one of them got in Anneliese's shirt, and she came away with like ten stings or something. She was fairly traumatized. Apparently some of the the bees even followed them into the house! (They ended up eating pizza for dinner on the floor of Ali's nursery to hide from them.) Props to Uncle Nick who took a few stings himself trying to get Anneliese away. Oh man.
11.) Sardi's Den. A restaurant that Mark and I loved when we lived in Clemson just opened up a branch in Raleigh, and we took Charlotte there for dinner. Ribs and backyard punch! Was really fun and tasted like memories of our early months of marriage.
12.) VCS. We survived another year of vacation church school! This year instead of teaching my own class, I did a variety of a/v tasks to run the assembly each day, and compiled a slideshow video for the last session as always, and did a rotating science teacher thing where we taught about movement and reactions by building lava lamps and playing a catapult game. Was fun and also unbloggably annoying in some moments, but mostly it's a really great week every year.
I took our annual pic in the matching shirts, but before I could get everyone to smile, I got them to frown for a few tries.
Let's just take another look at Charlotte's face here.
We spent the weekend with my sister and her family in Mt. Holly for the holiday weekend. Let me tell y'all something about small towns: they know how to do patrotic holidays in the best most 'MERICA ways possible.
On Friday night we made a campfire at Ashley's and lit sparklers for the kids, and made s'mores. It was hot as the blazes and John's idea of a campfire is basically FOREST FIRE (just kidding) (except kinda not) but the kids loved it and baby Everett didn't seem to mind the cloud of ashes blowing around his head too much.
But! The s'mores were fantstic, and the sparklers were SO FUN, and John even got some long rainbow ones for Anneliese, because he is an A++ uncle, for real.
On Saturday morning we got up early to take the kids to a parade in town. Except they were actually in the parade -- one of those things where all the kids can dress up in red, white and blue and ride a bike or a wagon or whatever, and wave. Since they are so little, we all decided to walk with them.
Which is, apparently, what everyone else decided to do too. Because basically everyone else who showed up for the parade was also in the parade. There were maybe ten bystanders along the whole route.
Basically, the whole town took a walk together, is what I'm saying.
And then afterward there was free ice cream for all the participants! (So, the whole town.)
(And yes, it really was free. I finger-erased those quote marks for them.) (I also erased the ones around parade but Ashley pointed out in hindsight those probably could have stayed. Ha.)
So here we are, parade completed and eating ice cream, all by 10am. 'MERICA!
After the parade we went to John's dad's house, where he lives in a compound of sorts with his mom and sister. (It's not really a compound, they just call it that. Their houses all back up together and they share a pool and tennis court and such. It's cool!)
The kids swam in the pool and John jerry-rigged the slide with a hose so they could use that too. We had pizza for lunch and the baby slept in the outdoor bar area and then it started raining and we still had trouble pulling the kids from the water.
Anneliese did this slide easily a hundred times. Just, on repeat, never less delighted with it.
(If you can't see the video embedded above, click here to watch on YouTube.)
That night, John set off a bunch of fireworks and... okay. Here's the thing. They weren't fancy by like anyone's downtown official fireworks show standards. But they were waaaaay fancier than what any one person should be shooting off at home in their front yard. I mean. It was very cool to see, and also a tiny bit terrifying.
John had some noise blocking ear covers for the shooting range (of course he does) so Charlotte wore those until she fled away with Anneliese.
The boys were impressed and the girls were... impressed from the window inside the house.
