4th of July

Happy 4th of July!  In typical PNW fashion, the weather was cool, mid sixties, until the sun finally came out.  It was great!  Randy was in charge of the annual church breakfast which meant there was a ton of food and a ton of leftovers.  The decorations were on point so everyone knew as soon as they pulled up to the park that Randy Ball was in charge.  Randy had a "founding father" recite the pledge of allegiance and then one of our talented teens sang the National Anthem.  Good times were had and Parker was awesome for inviting a bunch of his friends.  They all had a great time.

I sliced two crates, not boxes, crates of strawberries.  

Kristina, our office manager, bought decorations for the kids to decorate their bikes with for the bike parade.  The prizes were bags full of swag.  Kristina knows not to do anything halfway for Dr Ball.

Notice all the bunting by Randy.  He says we can use it for our house (insert eye roll and laughing emoji here).

After the breakfast we braved the boat launch and it turned out no one was out on the lake.

The best kind of boating is when I can read a book

Marcus spent the 4th of July in Paris with our good friends, the Walker's.  

We literally had hundreds of sparklers because Randy bought a ton and so did one of the other dads.  We finally stopped helping the kids light them and just walked away.  They figured it out themselves and no one got hurt, although a few small fires were stomped out of the lawn.

Our backyard is seriously magical with the lights and the kids playing and the s'mores being roasted.  

We had a little pre-firework show in the front yard that was actually crazy.  I ever knew fireworks could be so big, loud, and smokey.

Our trees are starting to get too big for perfect viewing but it still beats fighting the crowds and parking to watch the show from anywhere else.  There were so many kids/adults/teens on the roof this year that they didn't fit.

The state of my laundry room is how I gauge the chaos level of my life.  This was an all-time high level.

The 4th of July

We lucked out with great weather for the 4th of July.  Ethan was home for several days and at at the last second, Randy's sister Heidi and her family ended up spending the 4th and 5th with us.  We packed a lot in, as usual.  

We always spend a lot of time on the boat when the college boys are home and this time Ethan convinced Henry to try surfing.  A LOT OF BRIBERY took place.  I can't remember but I'm pretty sure Henry earned a Panda stuffie (Henry is obsessed with all things Panda, and black & white are his favorite colors).

Ethan looking all patriotic as he hung my new chandelier in the dining room.  Every time he's home I have a handy-man project for him and he usually gets them done for me.  I love him!

Henry and his buddies playing at the park during our annual ward breakfast

Husking corn is such a trial!

Boating is not a trial but waiting to surf and teaching people how to surf is not always the funnest

Lots of people on the boat means lots of waiting for a turn

Ethan and Halle showing us how couples surf :)

We had a huge crowd of friends and family this year and the backyard felt magical

Parker pretending he doesn't like sparklers

My patriotic Glassy Babies 

Such a cool pic even though the firework show was LAME this year!

Parker holding Baby Enzo, the first great grand baby on the Balls side

We spent the 5th of July boating with Heidi's family into Seattle and eating at Ivars

We were only about 9 days into summer vacation and loving every second of it!

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!

Oh Say Can You See...

We had a fun-filled 4th of July.  We started things off with our annual church 4th of July breakfast.  It's usually held at the church parking lot but someone forgot to reserve the building and lucky for us, they reserved a big park with a playground, ball fields, and plenty of room for the kids bike parade as well.   Hopefully this will become the new tradition.  We kicked things off with a flag ceremony before a delicious pancake breakfast with dutch oven potatoes.  After breakfast there were a couple of kickball games where Randy pulled a muscle in his leg (old people problems) and Marcus worked up a sweat reliving his recess days.  The other boys played at the park and rode their bikes in the bike parade.  The music was blaring, the adults were visiting with friends and playing ball, kids were playing and laughing, and it was a really great way to start the 4th of July.  Plus it was warm enough that we didn't need to wear jackets and it didn't rain.  Score!

I love that my boys know to get in the food line quickly.  Here's Landon and his friend eating quick so they can go play kickball

Later that afternoon Randy took Landon and Parker to the mountain bike park.  We'd gone the day before for the first time ever and they quickly became obsessed.  It's so fun!  I stayed home to prepare for our BBQ and did something totally unlike me.  I got some crazy idea from Pinterest to make a balloon garland and blew up a hundred balloons and strung them together.  Like all things on Pinterest it takes twice as long and looks half as good but it was still easy enough that I'll probably do it again and made me feel like I tried to put some effort into hosting.  I usually keep things very simple and unimpressive.

Note to self:  lots of balloons provides lots of entertainment for boys of all ages

That's me doing something totally unheard of:  Pinterest!

Be impressed.

We had a few families over for burgers and hot dogs and of course our grill quit working as soon as Randy put the meat on and had was halfway through cooking them.  Luckily our neighbors let us finish cooking everything on their grill and even luckier that no one got sick afterwards.  The burgers were delicious when we finally got to eat them.

None of these kids are mine but they sure looked cute with their sparklers!

God bless America!