New Life- Week 16 (4th of July)

This week I experienced my first every pandemic 4th of July.  The virus put a little bit of a damper on the festivities, but we were able to fight back and still make it a great one.  This year the 4th was on a Saturday so Jeremy got Friday off in observance of the holiday and we started celebrating early.  On Friday morning Jeremy took Merrick (and the Ioapo's) down to play some baseball in the morning.  They had a great time and Merrick declared that he almost hit a home run (you can ask Jeremy if it was as almost as Merrick thinks).  In any case they had lots of fun, except for the part where Kai threw a ball into the forest and then when they went to find it both he and Jason got into poison ivy/oak and almost ruined the morning (after a quick baking soda bath they were fine).

In the afternoon we got together with the Ioapo's and the older Brown boys and made our way to the river beach.  The boys pretty much spent the whole time in the water.  They just swam and played and eventually played football.  The girls went back and forth between the water and the sand but both got in the water more than I thought they would.

Yesterday was the 4th and Jeremy decided that he had so much fun at the ball field that he wanted to repeat this process again, this time with the Brown's too.  The boy cousins had a great time playing home run derby.  Everyone commented on how fun it is to play now that the boys are a little older and can actually play and field.

Our actual 4th of July festivities took place last night at Nana and Papa's house, again with the Ioapo's.  We had burgers and nachos and s'mores.  We had a fire in the fire pit and then did fireworks out in front of the house.  Several other neighbors came out and did fireworks as well too.  We brought some very tired girls home about 10 and Jeremy walked Merrick over to see some big fireworks happening just around the corner from us.  I went upstairs and turned off the lights in my bedroom and had a perfect, unobstructed view from my bedroom window.  They lit up my whole room when they went off.  It was pretty cool.

Since the party is apparently still rolling today, Carrigan and Isabel went over to Nana and Papa's to build a fairy house.  I guess one thing led to another and they ended up designing Nana a new table top too.

In about half an hour we are heading to Brendon and Rachel's to say goodbye to Lauren.  She is moving to LA this week.  We are going to miss her tons, but know she is going to do great things.

It's been a whirlwind of a weekend for sure and a great time that even the coronavirus couldn't stop.