My 4th of July blog... on the 7th.

Wow, what a weekend I had! Bob and Judy ended up coming a day early (Thursday) and stay up until Sunday, just before I left for work. We set of a few things Thursday night after we got back from Fredericktown, but not many. We mainly just wanted to get our hands wet, so to speak.

I didn't get up until a little after 1, LaVaughn followed not 10 minutes later. After we both showered and made ourselves presentable, the festivities began! Our uncle started grilling around 2ish, which seemed a tad too early, but he was cool with it -- we just didn't want to get stuck grilling!

LaVaughn, myself, my uncle, and Bob all sat outside grilling and listening to music. Mama Judy stayed inside and took a nap on the couch. I don't think she was feeling well, because she stayed inside 70% of the day. Around 3 or so, my cousin (Scott) call my uncle (Gene) and said that they just had to stop by the fireworks place and then they were on their way.

My other cousin, Aaron (Scott's son), his girlfriend, and his little boy (Eli) made it here just before 4. It's still so hard to believe that he's a dad now! I'm a couple years older than him, so I spent a lot of my childhood babysitting him and his little brother Garrett when we lived in Florida. We kind of grew up together there for a while, but lost touch in the last 10 years or so.

My aunt followed not 10 minutes behind him, then Scott and his family showed up. He came with his wife, Lisa, her daughter MaKayla, her son, Garrett (not to be confused with Aaron's little brother), and her niece, Brittany. They carted all of their things up to the house. They brought like 4 packs of hot dogs, some type of dip, some type of noodle salad (it was cold, yuck), and 4 pies.

Everyone sat around for about 20 minutes after that, then it was time to it. Following the feast was such a long and boring task -- we (LaVaughn and myself) mainly just sat around for the next few hours. We did squeeze in some coffee before nightfall, but that's nothing new to us.

Eli started setting off some fireworks when we all got done eating, then Garrett and Gene, my uncle, started setting off bottle rockets and things like that. Then my uncle had to put ME on the spot and shout out, "Aren't you going to set off some of yours!?" Um, no, no I'm not. I don't want to stand in the middle of the driveway so that I can display myself for all the world to see. I'm too reclusive for that. Plus, I don't like large crowds.

Since everything got awkward after that and I felt put on the spot, I decided to go down by the people I hardly knew and set some off. Yeah, it was good, fun-loving un-comfortableness. It only took like 15 minutes for everyone to disperse, then before I knew it Garrett and I were the only ones down there. I looked back, only to find everyone sitting in a row watching us. I tucked tails behind the truck so that I couldn't be watched like a caged animal.

The rest of the night seemed to drag by, but it finally got dark and the big guns came out. Scott really outdid himself with the fireworks, they were beautiful! I FINALLY got to use the fireworks setting on the camera and it actually worked! I was so pleased with how some of the photos turned out.

The following day was spent on a more sedated tone. LaVaughn and I stayed inside and watched American Ninja Warrior for a couple hours, then the beginning of Sweeney Todd. Gene, aunt Sharon, Judy, and Bob were all sitting outside during this time, drinking and listening to music.

LaVaughn and I joined them around 4, fireworks in had. We all sat around in a circle setting off petty things, like smoke bombs, bottle rockets, rat chasers, and a few others. This went on for a good hour before LaVaughn and I moved to the end of the truck by ourselves with our own, non-country music. I think we ended up setting off 4 packs of bottle rockets by the end of the night.

Of course, we stopped halfway through to enjoy MORE BBQ.  Then when night rolled around, we sat off all our "big" fireworks that didn't hold a candle to Scott's.

It was a fun and enjoyable weekend, good times were had by all.

Now, since the roofer is here (and woke us up before 10:00), I think we're going to go swimming. I can't think of anything better to do at this time of day when we're already all jacked up. I'm hoping I can get all the videos (nearly 40) uploaded and linked. Who knows when that will happen, though. I hope everyone enjoyed the 4th and had and equally fun/exciting weekend.

Love & Peace

-Megan

Warning... close to 150 pictures listed below!

Friday, July 4th

The grilling man, Gene.

Mmm, BBQ!

"Ah no, no pictures please." Pleaded Bob.

"Oh what the hell." He said, with a smile on his face.

You just can't complete your 4th without a picture of flies mating.

More mating flies.

The drink/sound station.

 I love the red, white, and blue cups.

Clearly a little too much. Plus, I was bored.

Eli is such a cute little boy.

Is she asleep here?

Yes, I'm photographing you!

Yup, she's asleep.

Garrett and Scott with their loot.

I believe this was Brittany.

My absolute favorite BBQ item.

See, they were all lined up... just staring at the 4 people sitting by the house.

Scott and Gene.. they love each other.

Yummy!!

Mike's hard black cherry lemonade. Surprisingly not as tasty as you would think.

I caught the roman candle in mid blow!

They're all amazed.

Cute little Eli.

Are all of your humans in a row?

I love mid-action pictures.

I think it's safe to say we had enough punks. And this wasn't even half of them.

Garrett, standing in amazement.

Let the festivities, begin:

I love fireworks!!

I was actually able to capture some decent pictures.

Beautiful golden light.

This was from the big boy we bought.

And this one.

So many colors in this one.

Fountains are pretty awesome too.

Red, white, and blue fireworks.

Awesome fountains.

SO many colors!!

Releasing the light thing.

Saturday, July 5th

This actually wasn't as explosive as it seemed.

Stink bombs in awesome little glass bottles.

"Did you spill your beer?"

"Maybe."

Throwing a smoke bomb.

Pretty!

Gotta love the parachutes.

BBQ time:

Gene's blister.

Someone looks unhappy.

Someone looks a little too happy, haha.

The music.

Our seating for the evening. LaVaughn upgraded to a blue chair, like mine, later on.

These were just the coolest, how could be not wear these?

More pretty fountains.

This was a roman candle, and it looks awesome!!

This looks like a dragon or something.

The End

No pets allowed!!

What a day, what a day! I kid you not, it has been one long and stressful day. Yesterday evening after I made the neuter appointments (for around 4 PM), I got a call from the secretary at the vets office asking if we could come a little earlier, around 3 or 3:30. I called back today a little after noon and said yes. Since LaVaughn and myself both got up fairly early, we were able to shower and leave the house just after one.

We get there at almost 2:30 on the dot and get seated. Not 10 minutes later we were told that they were able to find a 3:00 and that it would probably be closer to 3:30 before they could get to us. We weren't really in any rush, so it wasn't a big deal. When 3:45 rolled around and we STILL hadn't got called back, it started to be considered a big deal.

Since we love out vet so much, we didn't make a big deal out of it.

Neal got taken back at about 4:10, then Declan not 20 minutes later. Neal was being SO uncooperative and would not relent when it came to cleaning himself. He was mostly just trying to get all the gunk off from the operation, but it wasn't helping my nerves at all! I was breaking out in a thick sweat with worry, nothing was helping to calm me. Things were made worse when she got done with Declan. Just when I thought he was going to be good, he started doing the same thing, just not as aggressive.

By the time we got to Barefoot Village (fireworks place) the boys had calmed down... some. I had no intention on leaving them in the car, so I grabbed the pouch and headed inside. Right there on the front door in big bold letters read, "NO PETS ALLOWED!" Pretty much just like that, so back to the car I went. I don't think I've ever seen us firework shop so fast. We were both so worried about them, though. Luckily they were perfectly fine when we returned to the car.

After that is was off to the store to stock up on chips, soda, meat, and a few other BBQ necessities. The boys had calmed down significantly by then and were starting to go to sleep, which was a huge relief. After that we grabbed a bite to eat and headed home.

We already have a couple guest at the house that are planing on staying the weekend with us, so the festivities have already started in a way, haha. Oh what merriment will be had tomorrow!

Love & Peace

-Megan

Here are the boys before we left the house:

And Ms. Fiona in LaVaughn's bra:

The perks of a day off...

Unfortunately our vet didn't have time to neuter the boys today. I called yesterday before I went into work. Luckily, she has time to do them Thursday evening, whew! It kind of worked out well, considering I didn't feel like doing crap today... go figure.

LaVaughn and I did managed to clean ALL of the gliders cages, change pouches, trim nails, clean the drop trays, and vacuum! It only took us a little over an hour, maybe longer. We've been trying to clean this and that everywhere we go in preparedness for the weekend. We're going to have a full house.

Did I mention that our cousin, his girlfriend, and son are coming down as well? If you're keeping count, that brings our total to a whopping 13 guests! I kind of want to tuck-tails and go to the river. I'm a tad reclusive when it comes to being around other people. I've been unsocial all my life, it's just the way I am, so I just typically don't do well in large groups of people.

Speaking of large groups of people, LaVaughn and I went to town a little while ago to get something to eat and was astonished by the amount of people that were there. Apparently there was a baseball game today. You know what that means... it's national "eat fast food with your ball playing kids" day! I was SO beyond thankful that I didn't have to work there on that day. Ugh, gives me chills.

I suppose that's all.

Love & Peace

-Megan

An adorable baby frog for your viewing pleasure:

The sky and the drive to town:

And yes, a free happy meal:

One of the perks of working at McDonald's.