The Day After

Yesterday was remarkably uneventful...so much so, in fact, that I'm a bit lost today...

It was awfully weird being in my City, where most lawns are lush and green, trees are healthy, my garden is flourishing...my pool is full, my washing machine has ample supply to clean our clothing...and know that there would be no fireworks.

The little ones we could light with the kids: fountains, sparklers, smokers...those make no difference to me - we didn't have that luxury growing up, so I can take them or leave them...but knowing all day long that there would be no sitting outside, enjoying cold watermelon, icy drinks, homemade ice cream, and snuggling my kiddos as we waited for the thumps and showers of colors in the sky...well, that was REALLY difficult for me.

I guess I've gotten spoiled that I've only ever spent ONE 4th without fireworks, and for that, we were in a mountain town that was disturbingly dry and they were being cautious...and it was weird.  Wait!  I've spent a 2nd 4th with no ginormous fireworks display - 2 years ago, shortly after Littlest One was born, we took a road trip to OR to see the in-laws, and were supposed to attend a wedding that had been cancelled (yes, it was incredibly awkward).  We spent that 4th with my in-laws, who are so intensely QUIET about everything they do...my MIL, bless her heart, does nothing unless it is convenient for her.  That means we do a LOT of simple things, because she doesn't want to be bothered with the work of it, never mind that when we are there, BB and I do the shopping, the prep, about 85% of the cooking, 95% of the cleaning, and all the "fun planning" of things...

Needless to say, it was weird yesterday...I got up early (no surprise there), and did 3 loads of laundry, dusted and vacuumed my main floor, and tidied the kids' rooms a bit, and made sure our bed was made and nothing was out of place.

I emptied, washed and refilled the wading pool, toting the old water in 5-gallon buckets to my garden, and watering (nice thing about those little wading pools is no chemicals, so I can reuse the water on my veggies and flowers!  Hoooray!) the gardens.  I washed the deck with a gentle and quick hose-down (basically to wash away the bird droppings), and rinsed off my table and chairs.  I made a simple brine for my chicken and got that going, got out the table settings and serving dishes. And then we sat around and watched DVR'd episodes of Disaster DIY (I love Brian Baumler almost as much as Mike Holmes).

BB and the kids worked to help tidy up, putting away toys, books, and BB sorted through his large stack of magazines that had collected in the basket next to his La-Z-Boy chair.

My family showed up around 11:30, and I fired up the grill around noon.  I cooked the chicken and basted it with BBQ sauce.  We enjoyed potato salad, BBQ chicken, deviled eggs, coleslaw, rolls, and a large fruit salad.  I'd made iced tea and a jug of lemonade.  We ate, we cleaned up, the kids played in the water, the adults sat around and talked about the same things we always talked about.

We had homemade Chocolate Custard Ice Cream, and cleaned up from that.  We chatted a bit more, I settled the kids for naps (much needed, I might add), and my family left about 15 minutes later.

Our excitement for the day?  Princess stuck a small Lego up her nose and Captain ended up losing his Legos for the foreseeable future.  After we extracted said Lego (she was able to blow it out), BB, Captain and I spent the next hour clearing out the cubbies under his bed (I TOLD BB I didn't want the bed that big), gathering every single Lego from his room, from the basement and other parts of the house, and putting them back into the giant plastic storage tubs we have for that purpose, and removed them from his room.

While I'm extremely grateful we didn't end up with a 4th of July trip to the ER, I was so sad that Captain lost his Legos.  They'd been in a time out (with the condition that they could stay in his room unless he played with them during the time out) because HE put one in HIS nose a week ago...he only had 2 more days of not being allowed to play with them.  I was sad, because EVERY TIME they choose to break the rules, one of them ends up with an injury.  Thus far, we've ended up with only minor injuries, like bonked heads, or bruised knees...but it is the principle of the matter.

SO, after we finished up with Operation: Remove Legos, BB and I sat down to relax and have a talk ourselves, when we realized it was 5:30!!!  SO...because BB was hungry, I made our dinner (kids were still napping), and we ate and I cleaned up, and then the kids woke up, so I made their dinners and cleaned up.

By the time I was done cleaning up from dinner, it was time to bathe the kids and get them into bed for the night...

One good thing?  My kids asked us to watch the "May the Force Be With You" on Spike...at least my inner geek was satisfied with watching the original Trilogy (being that we'd already watched the Firefly marathon that was on the Science channel)...