Thursday, July 9, 2009

A different kind of 4th of July

Yes, I know I'm about 5 days late with my recap of our 4th of July weekend shenanigans. Cut me a little slack though if you could. My niece and nephew have been visiting this week & we've been trying to squeeze as much playtime with them as possible while we can.

While I've got a little down time this afternoon, I thought I'd fill you in on the 4th of July weekend here at the House of Crackers.

It all started the evening of July 3rd when Mr. Crackers decided to set up the tent so he and the kids could have their first camp out of the year. Unfortunately Mrs. Crackers doesn't have a sleeping bag (shh...I know I could've improvised or even made a dash to Target for one. Honestly though, I camped a lot as a child and I'd much rather sleep in my own bed.)




According to Mr. Crackers, the kids slept well all night long. He knew this since the chair covers he used as bedding didn't quite provide the amount of padding he was expecting. He most of the night awake trying to find a comfortable position to sleep in so he could therefore verify our children's ability to sleep peacefully in seemingly any environment.

I, like the children, also slept well that night. Of course that's probably because I was in our air conditioned home sleeping in my own bed. Thanks for taking one for the team Mr. Crackers!




In the morning, we headed to a neighboring town for their 4th of July parade. For seemingly no reason (except for my own ignorance) we parked about 1 mile from the parade site (seriously, who knew they'd be so many convenient places to park right next to the parade!). We'll just go ahead and say that the long walk to the parade provided us with a nice bit of exercise, especially since we (and by we I mean Mr. Crackers) had to lug our 4 camp chairs up hill and then fight through the throngs of people to try and get to a spot where the kids had a fighting chance of seeing the parade go by...
We do love a parade. Usually the marching bands are our favorite part. This parade was even more special because our good friend Elizabeth was marching in it. In fact I was so excited to see her, I completely forgot to get her picture.

But nothing, not even Elizabeth (sorry Elizabeth), could match the sheer joy my hooligans felt at unexpected sight of Stormtroopers...



and Darth Vader!


I thought C and K were going to come out of their skin with excitement. I have no idea who these people were or why they were in the parade commemorating the birth of our country. I can only thank them & tell them that they improved on our parade experience in a way not even seeing a good friend could match.


Once the parade ended, we headed back to the house to dismantle the tent before the afternoon rains came and dampened the rest of our original plans for the holiday.


We had several invitations to outdoor cookouts from neighbors, but once the rain hit & the kids and Mr. Crackers went down for some well deserved afternoon naps, we changed our plans a bit.

That night instead of grilled burgers and hot dogs, we went out for Indian food at one of our favorite restaurants. After a delicious meal of tandoori chicken & tikka saag, we decided to bypass sitting in the relentless drizzle waiting for fireworks and instead headed home for something even more exciting.... movie night featuring Star Wars (episode 4).

Happy Belated 4th of July. May the force be the with you.

2 comments:

Kelly K said...

Weren't those the most random Star Wars characters you've ever seen? We couldn't figure out what they were either! From your picture, we were about 500 ft. down the road from you! Elizabeth enjoyed seeing you guys too.

shrink on the couch said...

We would have jumped for joy if we had gotten rain on the 4th. Sounds like your bbq alternative was a great idea.