He's Back

and all is well!

We picked Travis up from camp on Saturday morning.  He had honored my request and bathed on Friday, so he wasn't as "tanned" as last year, and he was un-nibbled by bears and in good spirits. And he claimed to have missed me -- what more could a mother ask?

On Sunday, Katie did the second Reading in church and did a beautiful job.  I was So proud of her!

 And yesterday was the Fourth!  Speedy Loved the parade (Sticky was very sensibly appalled by the noise of the sirens of every emergency vehicle in the county and huddled in my lap the whole time, though she did finally cheer up and wave at people on floats) and collected loads of candy.  There were fewer tractors and church floats than usual, but the procession was still amazingly long.  There was the usual Fourth festival at the park across the street, with music, food, and games, and Travis and Katie ate fair food and Travis brought me my yearly barbecue sandwich.  It was excellent.  And they competed together in the games.  They didn't win a thing (or even come close), but they had fun!

Katie, in the distance

Travis, sack racing

the balloon toss.  The egg toss looked very similar, but the results were stickier.

the three-legged race

We had invited friends over for a cook out at 6:30 and fireworks at 9:00, but the weather turned very stormy and the fireworks ended up being cancelled.  Some of the booths across the street were blown down, and the bands were rained out, but our friends are not fair-weather friends and showed up anyway, ready to celebrate!  The weather improved enough for the kids to swim after dinner, and the adults talked and were silly and wore a few lampshades.  The lack of fireworks was very disappointing, but it was still an excellent evening!

And today is Travis's birthday!  He is not sure about being a teenager (and I am sure that I am not ready to be the mother of a teen), so I told him he can just enjoy his presents and we will ignore the age thing (it's what I do).  I'm making him his favorite cake, and we're going out to lunch, so it is going to be a Wonderful day!