Celebrating Independence

*FYI: I wasn't happy with how much room the pictures were taking up, so I pulled a bunch of pics and put them together on one page in photoshop. I'm not very good at it, so it's not pretty, but it gets the job done. The only problem is that when you view it in the browser all together, the pics are too small to see. If you click on each pic, it will take you to a bigger image of each one so you can actually view the pics. Sorry about that, but it's better than it taking forever for the blog to load because of pictures that are too large.

The summer is going by so quickly already, we're almost halfway to back to school for the kids. As customary for us, my mom came out the weekend that she got out of school (and got to see the girls in their first dance recital) and took the kids back home with her. We always enjoy our time away from the kids because I do some major cleaning while they're not here and get their rooms ready for the upcoming year. This year is no exception, I have tons of bags ready to take to goodwill, not to mention the trash I removed from each room. It's nice to purge their rooms though and make them so clean (which of course they are determined to keep clean...for the first few weeks they get back anyway). And of course we miss them like crazy, but it's nice for J and I to get some time to be alone for awhile and I truly think it helps them to develop some independence from mom and dad--not to mention all the spoiling that goes on at Grandma's house.

This year we traveled to So Cal for July 4th as we always do. My parents usually have a block party (Lakewood still allows fireworks, so it's fun to do our own), but last year, some idiot got caught doing illegal fireworks so they got shut down for two years on the block party. So instead we went over to my brother and sister-in-law's house and had a big party there. All the regular faces were there: my two brothers with their families, my mom, and my cousin with his family. In addition, all of my grandparents were there and some friends that I haven't seen in about nine years. The father in this family was my little league coach back when I was around Cole's age, and our families became really close friends. They have a son my age and another son that is a little younger, and we used to go camping with them and get together often. They've always been a big part of our lives until we grew up and had families of our own. Well, the father found me on facebook and we've been able to reconnect, I invited them out for our party and we had a great time catching up. For me it was fun to watch their faces as they got to know my kids and my brother's kids. You can always see when some part of your child reminds them of you when you were a child, and that's really fun for me. The only sad part about our party this year is that my dad wasn't able to be there. The worst part about being a long haul truck driver is that you never know when you're going to be home and you can't plan on being anywhere. So we definitely missed him, but the kids got to see him the week before as well.

We also wanted to do something fun with our kids while we were there. I had thought about taking them to a water park nearby until I realized that it was the Saturday of a holiday weekend and they were probably going to be packed (not to mention, I think it barely hit 80 while we were there so we would have been freezing coming from 115). We decided to take the kids to Golf n Stuff instead, which was doubly fun for Cole because he loves the original Karate Kid movie, and they filmed there, so he has a new claim to fame for now.

The day after Independence Day, we went to a Mauss family party, so we got to see grandparents and aunts and uncles for that side of the family this time too. I forgot my camera, so I didn't get any pictures there, but it was really fun this year to see my kids interact with my husband's cousins. Some of his cousins are not that much older than my kids, so they have a lot of fun. The older cousins took off to a park nearby and my kids tagged along while J and I had a lot of fun talking to two of his uncles.

When it was time to come home, two of our kids insisted that they wanted to come home with us. I wasn't quite ready for my break to be over yet. And while I had finished their rooms, I didn't get the rest of the house cleaned yet, so we tried very hard to talk them out of it. I even offered to come back in 9 days to pick them up, but when Lindsay cried after thinking about nine more days away from me, I decided it was time for them to come home. And for Cole, as much as he loves his cousins, that poor kid is the only boy. And the two cousins that live close to my mom were constantly at the house, which is usually a good thing, but I don't think he had much patience for the three year old because she liked playing with his toys--and they don't hold up well to three year olds. So I guess he figured it was better to come home and have just Lindsay around than be surrounded by girls all the time too. And since we pay for karate whether he's there or not, we're back into the swing of going to karate all week. So much for our break. :D Oh well, that's what we'll have in another ten years when they've all grown up.