4th Fun (recap)

(I know some people hate recap posts, so sorry to those peeps.  But I gotta get this down before I forget...)

Those of you who aren't located in NC may not know this, but we've been dealing with some really weird weather for the past couple of weeks. Like, I may or may not be typing this from some sort of watercraft. Really though, it's been ridiculous.

(this is with no filter, in the middle of the afternoon...)

Random little pop-up thunderstorms aren't weird for NC in the summer... however, two weeks straight of storms, downpours, gloomy Seattle-like rain, and monsoons? Not normal. Our back yard, which is usually in full sun... is now like a swamp. It's gross. I'm over it.

The plus side is that it's kept the temps down. Normally, we'd be rockin' 100+ temps right now. So far the highest we've gotten has been around 95 I think? So I probably shouldn't whine too much.

Anyway, the point of all this is that all of these torrential downpours kind of put a damper on our typical firework extravaganza. Last year, I think we saw like 4 or 5 firework shows. This year, only one real one.

But we still managed to have a great week.

Brad turned 30 on Monday. We just grilled out some steaks, since the rest of the week was going to be so busy. Our buddy Chase came down the next day, and he's actually still here.

(Noah helping uncle Chase work...)

 

Every July 3rd, mine and Brad's old neighborhood throws a big block party. Everyone brings canopies, chairs, and a dish to share. We all camp out at the end of the street (in front of my old house) and catch up. A couple of the moms that knew me as a kid were so funny. They asked my mom if she'd had some work done, because she still looks so young (she hasn't). Then they proceeded to go on and on about how "gorgeous" I am. I told them I was going to come back home more often. One of them explained how she hasn't had any work done either yet, but she does do "the yoga" (said in a strong country accent). I'm still laughing about it. Noah wasn't feeling well, and all that chaos and people was too much for him to handle. He had a total meltdown about 10 minutes into our visit, so we cut it short. He calmed down once we headed to the car, so we decided to head towards the SC border and get some fireworks (the fun kind are technically illegal in NC, but the cops tend to ignore them on the 4th). Brad picked out his arsenal, and we figured if all of our firework shows got rained out, we'd make our own.

The actual 4th of July, Brad's parents, sister, and niece (with her boyfriend) came over for burgers and to celebrate Brad's birthday. Our original plan was to go downtown for fireworks, but right around the time we needed to head down there, we got hit by another storm. My SIL brought some home movies with her, so we all cuddled around the tv and watched movies from around the time Brad and I started dating. It was so surreal to see my nieces and nephews so tiny again.

After the rain quit, we met up with one of our neighbors and combined arsenals for our own firework shows. Remember how I said most cops look the other way around here during the week? One even drove by us and didn't even pause. lol. Taxpayer money at its finest.

Saturday night, we decided to take our chances and head down to a neighborhood that sets off some amazing fireworks after the 4th. We picked up my little sister and went around the corner with hopes that the little clouds over us wouldn't get angry and turn into something bigger. They shoot them off from the golf course, and obviously, the kids LOVE being free to run around like crazy people before they start.

Thankfully, it held off just long enough for us to watch a pro show. We watched about 5-10 minutes of it before Noah sweetly asked, "Inside?" That was our cue that he'd had enough. At least we beat the traffic. My sister was awesome and watched Noah afterwards, so the three of us went to see a movie.

Despite having to change my shoes 53453984753 times and constantly stepping in mud puddles, the week was pretty awesome. More to come. :)