Happy 4th of July!

We celebrated 4th of July with family BBQ, swimming, and of course, fireworks. The weather was beautiful and it was a great day for a celebration. Our fridge was full of special treats; we ended up having too much food, so now we'll have to celebrate again today with the leftovers! Mom and I made ribbon Jello in wine glasses for our "with dinner" dessert, they were festive and pretty. Next, we jumped in the pool for a swim. The water was nice, but the air was already cooling off, so we got a bit chilly, but it was fun. After the pool, we had our second dessert. I made a festive fruit tart with blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries. It was delicious. We ate quickly, then headed to the Nickell's for fireworks. Isaac and Jonah had left before the rest of us and already had the fireworks set out and ready to go. Michelle and I were busy photographing the firework line up when Isaac announced the finale piece wasn't even out yet. Wow. Things started out small with sparklers, although Jonah and Isaac had some sparklers that weren't quite so small and actually got rather crazy when they started sparking more than expected. Then they started setting off the bigger fireworks in the street and we had quite the show.

The neighbors were setting off their own fireworks.

The last firework exploded more than it should have and caught on fire at the end.

Here's a video of the evening:

It was a festive and fun fourth with lots of food, family, and fireworks!

The Pre-Party

Fourth of July is here again and we started celebrating on the 3rd with fireworks at the baseball game! First, we met at the Nickell's and had star shaped sugar cookies Michelle and I made at work this week.

Then we headed over to the baseball stadium to watch the end of the game. We got there at the end of the fourth inning and bought snow cones. The view from the grass where we were sitting wasn't very good, so it was hard to follow the game, but we weren't very interested until it was tied at the end of the ninth and had to go into an extra inning. By then, the kids were pretty tired because it was already way past their bedtime. Thankfully, we scored at the bottom of the tenth to win the game at 10:00pm. Finally it was time for fireworks! The show was short, but worth the wait with lots of good ones. I love fireworks!

Relaxing Weekend

Jaime came to visit this weekend and we went floating on Sunday afternoon after she arrived. 

 Our first stop was Walmart to get a cheap inner tube and lunch. Then we headed for the river. Thankfully, this time we knew to wear shoes, which made the walk along the railroad tracks much less painful. It was a beautiful day for a float, hot and sunny but the river wasn't too crowded. Michelle trying to get in the water, it was still pretty cold. The float took about an hour and a half and was relaxing. Afterwards, we went home and Jaime opened her new game.Pirateer is a game she played awhile ago and has been looking for, but they don't make it anymore so it's hard to find. We finally found a new one on ebay for a good price so Jaime was pretty excited to finally get to play.

The next day we decided to go floating again. This time Janelle came with us and we went for a longer float and had lunch on the river. Ready to set out. Jonah trying out a rope swing from the starting bridge. Michelle and Jonah with the crab that held our snacks and music (they brought their iPod and speakers). Another Chaco picture! It was another relaxing afternoon on the river, we went farther this time and took about 3 hours, with a stop in the middle to reapply sunscreen. Back at the car afterwards. It was a lovely way to spend a hot summer day.

Birthday Trip

For Dad's birthday yesterday, we took a trip to Yosemite for the day. It was a beautiful day for a trip, warm but not hot.This is my first and only picture of Yosemite Valley because my camera decided to run out of battery. Thankfully, I had my charger and we were able to charge it while we drove so I wasn't without it for long. We stopped to have a picnic lunch by the river and it was a beautiful spot. We had sandwiches and chocolate cake with ice cream for dessert. The chocolate cake was super rich, chocolaty, and delicious. Then we went a little farther downriver and stopped to take some pictures. I had my camera back by then, whew.The boys had fun playing by the river.We decided to drive up to Glacier Point because it has a great view of the park and none of us kids had been there before. Almost everyone fell asleep on the way up, but once we arrived we were happy to get out and look around. The views were indeed amazing. Michelle, Jonah, and I were impressed that we had climbed Half Dome, it is so big, and were inspired to do it again.Natalie was fearless looking over the edge.Everyone wanted to take pictures of the reflection in Isaac's sunglasses.One last view from the top. Then we headed back down the mountain and into Oakhurst where we had dinner at Todd's Steakhouse. It was crowded when we were ordering, but they gave us a room in the back all to ourselves and it was great. Good food too. We made it back to Visalia about 9:30pm and quickly unloaded the Nickells before coming home. All in all, it was a great and beautiful day.

Today at Work

I opened for the first time today since I started working at Wildflower last fall. That meant being to work at 6:00am, particularly bothersome after closing last night at 9:15pm. However, it wasn't bad overall, due in large part to the season. Getting up early and going to work reminded me of summer at camp because our AM shift started at 6:00 too. Besides, getting up early in the summer is easier than the winter because at least it is light outside, waking up in the dark is disorienting. And speaking of disorienting, it was a weird day at work because we were super slow, we never had a breakfast rush or lunch rush, not even a coffee and muffin rush. We did have some people come in, but not many. So we tried to keep ourselves occupied by doing extra baking and cleaning. At the suggestion of a customer, I frosted these sugar cookies like pirate ships and love how they turned out. I also made butterscotch swirl brownies and Sierra and I frosted this camouflage cake that was a special order for a veterans appreciation dinner.

Floating

Yesterday for Memorial Day Michelle, Jonah, and I met up with Mary, Heidi, and Phillip and their friend, Isaac, to go floating down the St. John's river. Our first stop was WalMart to buy some cheap tubes, then on to the river. We dropped off a car at the end point, then all piled into Phillip and Heidi's truck, boys in the front

and girls in the back. It was a tight squeeze, but we didn't have far to go. We parked farther up river and set out. Unfortunately, this was a new starting spot for all of us except Isaac and he forgot to mention that we had to walk a way to reach the river. Most of us left our shoes in the car because we thought it was just a quick walk to the river, instead we ended up burning our feet on the hot ground over the longer distance. It hurt really bad and we developed blisters. But finally we made it. However, once we reached the river, Heidi didn't notice some barbed wire on the ground and set her tube on it, which of course immediately put a hole in her tube. We tried to find something to fix it with, but had no luck, so Heidi had to plug the hole with her finger the whole time. It ended up being successful and she kept her tube full the whole time. We started getting in the river and it was so cold, then the clasp on my swimsuit top broke. All in all, this was seeming like a disastrous trip. Michelle and Mary were able to tie my swimsuit back together with the detachable strap that goes around my neck and finally we set off. Once on the river, things improved and we had an enjoyable float downstream. The sun was out and the river was peaceful.

For the most part, we stayed connected to each other and floated down in a clump. Once you got used to the water, it wasn't so bad, at least while the sun was out. For the second half of our ride, it was mostly cloudy and then we started getting cold. We reached our end spot and climbed out, then waited while Heidi and Jonah drove back to get the other vehicle. Then we said goodbye and Michelle, Jonah, and I came back home to rinse off before having a BBQ dinner with the rest of the family. We had tri tip with frozen chocolate peanut squares for dessert, mmmm.