4th of July Weekend

We had a nice 4th of July weekend.  Our garden is going gangbusters right now, and we have more lettuce than we know what to do with.  Hence this lettuce tower we cut on Sunday morning.  I mean seriously, the thing was over three feet tall.  It started out looking like a normal head of leaf lettuce and then went nuts.  Justin has quite the green thumb!

Justin bought a riding mower about a month ago and June got to take her first (very slow) ride.  She loved it!  It also gave us a chance to have her wear the new earmuffs we got before taking her to the fireworks.  

We spent a lot of time in the yard this weekend. June loves to be outside.  I've got more freckles this year than I have for many years because I usually hide  inside or in the shade during the summer. June saw me laying on the slide so she had to try it out.


June had one morning of willingly climbing the ladder and going down the slide at our house.  Now she wants nothing to do with it.  But she does like to try to climb up the ladder.  Little goof!

She likes to snag my sunglasses and feels very special when she gets to wear them.  I usually don’t let her since they are prescription and not cheap.  Since I have such a small head they fit her pretty well :P  This weekend when we came in for a potty break she left them on.  I was amused. 

Monday night Justin stayed home with June and I met my family at a park for a free concert.  Tommy James & the Shondells played.  It was a lovely evening, and fun to hear their classic songs. I got to hold Miss Julia which was a special treat!  

We had a busy 4^th of July.  We went to Menards first thing to buy some pavers to set up a flower bed.  Justin spent the morning dealing with our backyard landscaping project and I took June to a 4^th of July parade. It was June’s first parade.  I knew the parade route, as the beginning of the parade was right where I lived with Katie for several years, so we found good parking and set up at the beginning of the parade route.  June liked seeing the horses, fire trucks, and Herky.  It didn’t take her long to notice all of the kids lining the street with open bags.  She said “what the man giving away, mommy?”  I told her it was candy.  Eventually someone chucked a dum dum sucker far enough into the crowd for me to snag one.  Sour apple, my favorite!  I gave it to June, told her to lick it, not bite it.  She licked it a couple of times, looked at me and said “what is this, mommy?”  I told her it was a sucker.  She said “I like it!”  It was so cute. We don’t give her candy so it was a huge treat for her.  

We decided a few weeks ago that we wanted to take June to the fireworks.  But there’s no way she would have been able to stay up until 10:00, so we put her to bed at 7:00 like normal and told her she was taking a nap and that we would wake her up to go see fireworks.  She was out cold when I went in to wake her at 9:00. Eventually she roused and was in a good mood, which was awesome!  June loved the car ride to the park, since she’s never up in the summer past dark.  She loved seeing the tall street lights and lit-up signs, and a fountain that was lit up as well.

We met my mom near the park where they were lighting off the fireworks and we waited.  We told June some of the fireworks would be loud but that they couldn’t hurt her.  Once they really got going we put her earmuffs on and she took turns sitting on Justin’s lap, then mine, then my mom’s.  I don’t know what I was expecting her reaction to be.  She wasn’t scared, but she did seem overwhelmed.  She mostly just stared at them, and then wanted to look at the cars and motorcycles driving by. All in all, it was a success.  No fear and no tears.  Yay!  

I hope you all had a great 4^th of July.  I for one will be glad to be done with the neighborhood fireworks for a while. The people in our neighborhood are ridiculous.