4th of July

I'm back!!  I won't be able to sleep another night if I don't get back to this blog.  The guilt is gnawing at me!  But in my defense, I have been insanely busy.  No one told me having a graduating senior would take up so much of time.  Throw in a lacrosse tournament in Bend, Oregon and a trip to Utah and Idaho, along with missionary preparations and a remodel and basically I'm lucky I remember who I am anymore.  There's a lot to catch up on so I'm getting back into the most recent events since that's the easiest for my frazzled brain to remember.

We had a magical 4th of July.  Seriously it felt magical.  The sun was finally shining!  After record breaking amounts of rain in June, the sunshine felt like a miracle.  It's been raining ever since, but not for the 4th of July.  We started off our morning with our ward breakfast at a beautiful park at Beaver Lake.  The food was delicious and it was fun visiting with old and new friends.  I also need to insert here that another big event keeping me busy has been our ward boundaries getting reorganized a couple months ago.  We got about thirty new families that joined our ward and that caused complete chaos and is still the bane of my existence as Relief Society President.  Anyway...the breakfast was fun, even if it felt a little like work.

After the breakfast, the younger boys spent the day playing with their neighborhood friends so I didn't feel bad about doing laundry while Randy worked in the yard.  Everyone was happy.  We typically host a big BBQ but since we still don't have a kitchen, I decided to throw a "Fireworks and Floats" party in the backyard.  I invited a ton of people and about sixty of them showed up. 

There was always a long line for the rope swing so people roasted s'mores while they waited

We lit over 300 sparklers!  The whole backyard was filled with smoke and the only person who got burned was Henry :)

It's been three years since we've had a firework show in Sammamish and everyone was excited to do normal things.  I invited a lot of new people to the party and it was fun to see their reaction when they walked into our backyard for the first time.  The lights, music, treehouse, and games made the whole thing seem even better than usual.  I served up so many root beer floats I literally got frost bite on one of my fingers.  Typing is actually quite painful.  Please bless I don't lose a finger! :)

The fireworks go off right at the end of our trail that leads off our property so a bunch of party guests watched the show from ground zero and said it was incredible.  The rest of us sat in our driveway and the teenagers sat up on the roof.  It felt like our very own private firework show.  You know the party was a success when everyone kept coming up to me and hugging me as they thanked me for inviting them.  The magic was real!

Look closely and you'll see all the teenagers lined up on the roof

Best seats in Sammamish!