No Laundry? No Problem!

One of the last things Daniel did before he left was clean out his dresser. He sorted clothes into two bags: one destined for the D.I. and one to go into storage. In order to make sure everything was nice and clean before storing it for two years, Kevin washed all the t-shirts in the “to keep” bag. We always thought Daniel just wore the same assortment of shirts all the time. After all, we saw the same ones every week. What we discovered told a different story. Daniel had 45 t-shirts in that bag, far more than we expected seeing as we saw the same small assortment every week. But he had duplicates of many of his band shirts, as many as four identical ones. So I guess he really was rotating through his shirts. And the big pile also explains why he was never overly stressed when he forgot to do his laundry. He had enough shirts to go for over six weeks between loads.😂

The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave

I enjoy the 4th of July. Although I’m not necessarily a fan of being outside in the blazing July sun or smelling like smoke if the wind is blowing the wrong way after a big round of fireworks, I most definitely like the holiday itself. I think it’s because my patriotism runs deep. When I think about the day to day circumstances of people living in many other places in the world, I feel deeply blessed to live where I do. My kids don’t have to worry about getting shot on their way to school. We don’t go to sleep each night to the thunder of bombs falling. We don’t worry about where our next meal is coming from. We don’t long for an education that we can never have. I could go on and on. Suffice it to say that we are enormously blessed. Independence Day always reminds me of that and brings to my mind the gratitude I feel for all those men and women who fought and suffered and sacrificed to make this such a great place to live. Yes, our country is not perfect. We have our problems. There are times when I can’t watch the news because it makes me so mad. And don’t even get me started on my feelings towards many of the political circuses that occur. Sometimes I feel like the founding fathers would be ashamed of what the government has come to. But even taking into consideration all our country’s faults, it’s still a pretty amazing place to live. As such, we have a tendency to go red, white and blue for longer than just a day. And we do it in food, clothes, and activities. 😊

This year’s patriotic t-shirts were made with Sharpies and rubbing alcohol. The rubbing alcohol was supposed to make the Sharpies bleed creating a tie dye effect, but we felt like the results were lackluster. The process was fun though.

This year Kevin and the kids joined his brother Cory and his family for one of their 4th of July traditions. I opted out since they had to get up at 4:00 a.m. and I really didn’t want to end up spending the day nursing a migraine triggered by lack of sleep and messing with my body’s normal schedule. (Dumb migraines.) They drove south and attended a hot air balloon festival. With five people and six cameras, everyone got in on the action. (I may not have mentioned this, but all the boys have become shutterbugs of late. It has been super fun.) They ended up with hundreds of photos, many of which were really great, but I think Matthew got in one of the best shots of the day. He spent a lot of time watching a seagull, framing shots, getting everything just right, and came out of it with this:

Here are a couple more favorites.

Since most of the fam was elsewhere for breakfast, we ate our red, white and blueberry pancakes for lunch. And our traditional tri-colored patriotic beverages accompanied our dinner. Matthew is still the master where these are concerned.

As usual, we saw big fireworks last Saturday with Kevin’s folks. This evening we hauled out the littler fireworks and then took advantage of our view of the valley to watch a multitude of other fireworks. (My sister Esther joined us since she hadn’t had an opportunity to see any fireworks yet and was feeling deprived.) With the legalization of aerial fireworks a couple of year ago, we even had a few of those (but small ones that don’t cost an entire month’s worth of grocery money to buy). Malia contributed the best comment of the evening. After we set off the first aerial, she asked with a bit of bewilderment, “What did it do? Did it write her name?” There was a long, long pause while we all looked at her with total confusion. Seeing our looks, she clarified, “Ariel?” (She was talking about "The Little Mermaid.") And then there was laughter. Mighty laughter. Gotta love homophones!

Matthew, on the other hand, contributed the best fashion accessory when he decided to wear his parachute as a 4th of July bonnet.

How blessed we are to be able to spend yet another year celebrating the peace and plenty that we have in the good old US of A!

(The downside of having four children who are full of personality is that it is incredibly difficult to get a picture where all of them look normal. 😂)

Patriotism Using Pipe Cleaners

My kids have really come to look forward to our yearly tradition of making a t-shirt for the 4th of July. This year's selection used pipe cleaner to stamp fireworks on the shirts. They were simple and easy to make and the kids loved how they turned out!