Weekend: Florida and the Fourth

We had a busy, but good Fourth of July weekend.  We are trying to jam pack so many things into the summer- I keep reading things that remind me that we only get 18 summers with these kids, and even though I am working every day during the week, we are trying to make it as memorable as possible.

We started out Friday by driving down to B’s parents house to celebrate his dad’s birthday.  There were steaks and cake and vodka drinks, and it was a good time.

We got up Saturday morning and drove down to my dad’s place.  Sheff ate a quick sandwich and then got straight in his swimsuit and in the pool.  Then we all followed in.  It was such a nice day, and the water was perfect.  We had happy hour with dad’s margaritas and snacks.  We had our Fourth cookout on Saturday (since we had to leave early on Monday), and then had an early 7th birthday celebration for Sheff.  My dad had gotten him an ice cream cake and a few gifts – after, we all got back into our swimsuits for a nighttime swim, followed by nightcaps on the patio and bed time.

Sunday was supposed to be our beach day, but the weather ended up being pretty crappy, so we settled for lunch out, and a pool party.  While waiting for the weather to clear, we got in about eight thousand rounds of Uno, and then even busted out the poker set to play some hands.  It was a ton of fun, and when we tried to order pizza for dinner, but were told it would be two hours for pickup, we threw in a frozen pizza and snacked on the leftover food.  We did sparklers and watched some of dad’s neighbors set off some pretty good fireworks.

We got up early on Monday to drive back home and hopefully miss all the holiday traffic.   It was glorious, as we ran into zero and made it home right around lunch time.  Sheff’s next-door friend came over, and they played in the pool and in the backyard until it was time for us to head to get our spot for fireworks.  We’ve sat in the same spot for forever – so we were lucky to claim it again.  Unfortunately, it did rain a good bit before the fireworks, so we didn’t get to actually “tail gate,” but was still fun nonetheless.  We ran into an old daycare friend of Sheff’s, and Sheff passed out glow sticks to everyone.  He loves doing it so much.

The Fourth has always been one of my favorite holidays, and my relationship with it was complicated this year.  Compounding that feeling was the shooting that took place in IL- it actually gave me pause when thinking about what we were going to do that night.  There truly are no “safe spots,” and it can absolutely happen anywhere at anytime and that is terrifying.  We, as a country, need to stop fighting over every little thing, and find a way to come together on the big and important things.  What we’ve got now is beyond broken, but not beyond repair.