July 4th 2012

How’s your America-day going so far?  Mine got off to a bumpy start.  The rainy morning began with a depression that morphed into a meltdown followed by a shower and a bit of regrouping, a little pre-BBQ grocery shopping with my sweetie pie at the neighborhood Fry’s store that ended up being FAR more expensive than we anticipated, only to come out in the pouring rain with a cartload of groceries, get it loaded into the van, and then find that “OOPS!” Nettie left the lights on and deaded the battery.  LOVEly.

After finding the jumper cables (obviously at the bottom of the groceries in back), we called Laurent and she happily drove over.   Here is Paul, standing in the rain beside our van waiting for her to arrive, and making sure nobody else parked there.  Good thing he is not put off by a little water.

 Laurent and Paul through my rainy window.

Once we got home, all the kiddos came running out to help unload (because everything is just way more fun in the rain).  The steaks were a big splurge, and Paul enjoyed surprising the kids.  Here, we see Megan embracing her inner carnivore:

Look at those dimples!!  😀

After the unloading came the doling out of tasks.  Here Megan is embracing her inner onion-phile while preparing the guacamole:

Here Laurent is mixing up a gallon or so of blue cheese dip for dad:

Preparations were simple with our salad, steak, chips and dip meal.  The afternoon went by quickly after Jeff and Chris arrived.

After dinner discourse was entirely devoted to the history in the Sillmarillion.  Chris and Laurent dominated that conversation… the rest of us could only sit back in admiration at the magnificent geekiness on display.  Then we were off to the movies, with 7 of us bundled into the little mini-van (it has air conditioning – there is no amount of squishedness that air conditioning cannot counter-balance).  Mom stayed home, and Paul stayed as well, preferring a walk around the neighborhood to sitting in a theater watching The Amazing Spiderman.  We had given ourselves what (for us) is good time to get to the theater, and arrived with 10 minutes to spare.  Unfortunately none of us were thinking straight and completely failed to account for the whole holiday-movie-going phenomenon.  The place was PACKED.  We ended up sitting front row center, and decided it was practically a 3-D experience, without the extra expense.

And now we’re home and the kitchen is clean and people are turned in for the night, and tomorrow we have an early appointment at the  wound clinic for mom.  We are going early, because we do not remember if it’s scheduled for 8 or 9.  Erm… hope it’s 8, or we’ll have a long wait! 🙂