Happy 4th of July!

4th of July - A busy weekend

Friday:

Our weekend started on Friday with James being off. Hannah spent Thursday night at her Nonna and Poppy's house. My little sis, Esther, and her fiance, Jason, came over to hang out at the pool, play "Settlers of Catan", and then dinner in Tulsa at Famous Dave's - yummy bbq! We had a wonderful time and Gabriel was quite content to hang out with us.

Saturday:

We started off Saturday by driving in to OKC with Gabriel and met Nonna, Poppy, and Hannah down by the bank where Poppy works to watch the 4th of July Parade. They saved spots for us and James and I parked and 'hiked' to them. But lawn chairs, sno-cones, and mini battery operated fans made for a fun time! Hannah's said her favorite were the horses and the clowns.

Here is Hannah all decked out in the patriotic dress that Aunt Karen sent her last yeat (thanks to Aunt Karen - Hannah loves this dress.) Complete with her red/white/blue hair ribbons and pinwheel.

Gabriel did not appreciate the sirens or honks but was ok with everything else. The weather was wonderful that day. It was overcast with a slight breeze to overcome the humidity.

After the parade we went back to Nonna and Poppy's house where we all changed and jumped the water right away hoping to get some swim time in before it rained. The water felt SO good and the sprinkles held off for a while. Hannah can now swim across the whole pool by herself. She is getting to be a very good swimmer and would live in the water if we let her. :-)

Hannah and Papa played with all the water toys while I had Gabriel in the other end. He seems to really like the water and would kick his legs and stare down and the ripples when we moved. Here Hannah is playing 'ring toss onto Papa's nose'!

James' parents grilled some wonderful burgers, sausage, hotdogs, and porkchops for us. His mom also had potato salad, chips and dip, kidney bean, salad, lemonade, and iced tea in addition to all the burger and dog condiments. Cupcakes with flags, cookies, and ice cream topped it all off..... Was in need of a nap after that!

After we all took naps - we got out the firecrackers and sparklers for Hannah. She loved the "snakes" and the "sparklers". We haven't done it yet in the dark for her since it doesn't get dark until 9 but we did save some sparklers for another time.

We had to get home to feed the animals and when we were finished and got inside I looked out my dining room window and saw the most beautiful sunset. What a wonderful way to end a great day - thank you Lord for special gifts.

On Sunday morning we got up, fed the animals, went to church and came home to find that the goats had 'lovingly' let one of our chickens out of the coop - so James and Hannah went to return Cordelia to her friends and fix the side of the coop. After lunch and nap we headed back to church for a "Toaster" - our monthly social get together with church friends. On the the way home we stopped by a neighbors house to pick out two kitties! One is for Esther - she thinks her cat, Swazie, needs a friend, and one for us. So here is Hannah holding Willow our new little girl who will keep our other kitten, Oz, company.

This is Esther's new kitten, Etch. She is coming over tonight to pick him up and take him to her place. I put all three kitties together this morning to see how they would do and Oz was SO happy to have friends. He pounced on both of them and all three of them rolled and played in the hay out in the barn. I'm so glad we found someone to be with Oz - I think he gets lonely when we aren't out there.

Here are Etch and Willow after getting bathed to remove a million fleas before getting to be snuggled.

Close up of Willow