4th of July Festivities

This year the year the 4th of July fell on a Wednesday, right in the middle of the week. Rob and I had taken all of last week off so we weren’t able to take any additional time off at work this week. Luckily, our town was doing their fireworks on the 3rd. After work on Tuesday, we picked Leah up from school and grabbed a quick dinner. Afterwards, we headed over to the Village Hall area where the fireworks were going to be held. We met my sister-in-law Amy and her family and Randy and Lisa and kids for the festivities. They recently built a really nice amphitheater behind the Village Hall and there was a band playing. They also have a nice park. There were a handful of activities for kids too (bounce houses, slides, bubbles, etc.) before the fireworks started. It wasn’t as crowded as I thought it would be. Leah had fun, but it was a little TOO hot for me!

We all brought chairs and blankets to setup to watch the fireworks. We got settled about an hour before they started. Leah was pretty rambunctious and ran around with her cousins. At 9:15 pm the fireworks started and they completely caught Leah off guard and it was downhill from there. The first firework was a series of loud booms and crackles and it startled her. The fireworks were being setoff not far from where we were, so they were big and appeared to be super close. Leah cried the whole time and kept telling me it was “too much” for her and she wanted to go home. I thought she would have settled down and actually enjoy the show, but she never came out of it. (Last year, she loved the fireworks so I am not sure what her problem was this year). After about 5 minutes, we decided it was time to go. Rob quickly packed up our stuff and I walked Leah back to the car (and she cried the whole way there). She finally calmed down when we got into the car and pulled away. She told me several times that the fireworks were too much for her. As we were driving, we saw several fireworks far off in the distance. Leah said, ”Momma, I like the baby ones. They are cute.” I think they were just too close and “in her face” and she didn’t like it. We’ll see how she is next year!

On the actual 4th of July, we went over to my Aunt’s and cousin’s house for a BBQ. It had to be at least 100 degrees outside and I was one uncomfortable momma. My feet and ankles are horrendously swollen and the heat was pretty unbearable. I spent most of my time in the house! My dad was also over there too. It was too hot for him, he was outside much longer than he should have been. Ever since he got sick, he doesn’t fair well with the heat. Speaking of my dad, he had another doctor’s appointment this week and got the okay to schedule an appointment with the surgeon. The chemo and radiation did help shrink his tumor (which is great news). Hopefully he will be able to have surgery and get the rest of the tumor removed. There was a delay because he developed radiation pneumonia (spotting on his lungs) and the surgeon wouldn’t even see him until this was cleared up. He has been on a heavy duty prescription the past couple of weeks to help get rid of it. We were hoping he could have had the surgery by now, but we’ll have to wait and see when we can get it scheduled. (I am on a tight timeline with the baby coming soon and I’ll feel bad if I can’t be there or do as much for him as I would like). We stayed at my aunt’s house for a few hours and then came home. It was just way too hot outside! Overall, we enjoyed our 4th of July festivities!

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