Busy weekend, full of fun and family!
July 3rd--I rode with David in his truck that he especially likes to parade around on the Fourth of July, his truck with no doors and two flags flying in the back. Mike drove my Escape behind so I would have it to drive home after the fireworks while he rode back home with David. We met up with Matt and Chrissy and the boys, who also rode in their "fun truck" that Matt's been working on for our annual trip to the dunes. (My hair is a mess because I rode in a truck with no doors!)
After waiting on all the traffic to clear out, it made for quite a late night.
July 4th started out bright and early with my sweet friend coming over to join me for my morning coffee on my new little patio area I took on as a summer project. We have one little covered area on the side of the house that's been pretty much a storage area since we moved here. Definitely not a very aesthetically pleasing area. Now that Mike has built a large carport on the other side of the driveway, I no longer felt guilty for wanting to claim this little covered area for myself. Mike has said for awhile that he has visions of fixing it all up and building a deck on that side of the house, but I didn't see any reason not to at least make it look pretty as it is now. So I got David to help me move some things out of the way, and I painted the rickety-looking picket fence white, along with the two poles supporting the cover above. I just love sitting out in my new area on long summer mornings where I don't have to deal with the dew or the beating sun. I thoroughly enjoyed having my dear friend, Hannah, come spend the morning with me outside on a day she had off work. Such a sweet time of fellowship and sharing from our hearts. I'm super thankful for God giving us this precious friendship not long after we both just moved here and "happened" to meet in a random small group at church.
The rest of the day we spent cleaning up more and getting ready for our 3rd annual 4th of July get-together at our house with Matt's family. Matt loves to put on a big fireworks show, but he can't do much on his property due to his horses and other houses around him with outdoor animals. So he was pumped when we moved to a house out in the country with plenty of space to do fireworks. The first year we did a cookout, the second year a fish fry, and this year we continued with the fish fry and invited a few more people.
Here's Matt and Mark, his father-in-law, setting everything up and getting it ready to fry.
We fried lots of fish, cauliflower, zucchini, pickles, mushrooms, onion rings, onion petals, curly fries, and regular French fries. Don't worry, we also had salad, fruit salad, fresh watermelon, and a special watermelon just for adults. Plus we had jello cake and dirt pudding.
We definitely had space for all of our guests to park, even for Matt, who brought a trailer with go-carts and 4-wheelers for his boys to ride around.
And Boots had no shame in claiming a chair of his own while he joined us for the evening, at least until it was time for the fireworks. :)
More guests to share my new little space with! My sweet friends from Colombia, Zayde and Alvaro. Whenever we tell our story of how God connected us in Colombia when we spent a summer with Julian, we find ourselves in awe again of how God uses every detail of our lives.
We've been storing an old boat that Mike and Matt had in high school, so it was funny how they all had fun tinkering around with it. We don't even know if it still works.
Bev from church, Chrissy, Jan (Chrissy's mom) and Barb from church (Bev's sister)
Boots took a liking to Zayde
And Wes couldn't wait to show all the fireworks to his new friends from a different country
Here's just a little snippet of the grand show Matt put on for us in our front yard.
July 5th has now been a lazy day for me while Mike and David are outside working on the truck to get it ready for a trip to the dunes this coming week.
But I made sure to make a phone call to my dad to celebrate his 79th birthday! I was thankful to know my brother celebrated big with him today by having him out to his place by the lake and making his choice of grilled salmon. Wish I could have been there, too!
FaceTiming with my dad is a rarity, so I was glad I remembered to snap a quick picture before we hung up.
No comments:
Post a Comment