Fantastic Fourth

We had a house full of people for the 4th of July. Jet's Aunt Deanna and Uncle Karl, Grandpa, cousins Big and Little Daisy and another cousin all came over to celebrate. We had lunch, worked puzzles, watched movies, blew bubbles, took naps, and had some fantastic burgers for dinner.


Another friend of ours, whom we hadn't seen for a long time, also came over. She and I were trying to remember when we had actually seen each other, and determined that it had been about five years. (Five years?!?! I thought, Am I actually old enough to have friends that I don't see for five whole years?!?!? And we're old enough and mature enough to still be friends after all that time?) She and I have one of those really cool friendships where you don't have to talk every day to maintain the friendship. We've emailed sporadically over the years, but not regularly.

In fact, I was a little nervous when she decided to accept my invite to come. What if it's all weird and uncomfortable?, I thought. What if we don't really have anything to say to each other? Our lives are so different these days... Jet and Knight are my world, and she's still freewheeling and single...???

I don't know why I worried. We slid into comfortable conversation right away, and spent a fantastic day catching up on each others' lives and families. It was so good to see her!

Most of the towns in our area canceled festivities for yesterday. The whole reason for everyone coming to our house was so we could go wander around the festival in the park and see the parade, but the ground is just too soggy. I had been all excited because it seemed like the first year in a long time that we weren't worried about it being canceled due to a burn ban. It's usually so hot and dry this time of year.

During this not-writing-much phase of mine, we've had literally tons of rain. The main river that goes through our town flooded its banks by 31 feet. My parents' lot backs up to a smaller river; they're in a 500-year flood plain. The water rose really high at their house, too. Their house didn't flood, but the water was probably about 10 feet from their back porch.

Our swim lessons were canceled for several days because the pool is in the park where the river is. The whole park was closed, and then the pool had lost power, so the filters couldn't run... we were supposed to be finished with lessons last Thursday. They were rescheduled to extend into this week, and we finished on Tuesday.

One last thing... Mir referenced a column by Nora Ephron called The Six Stages of Email. Go read it -- it's hilarious!!!