Another Holiday

Each holiday, birthday, or event that passes serves to mark the passage of time and remind me how long it's been since we've been 'home'. We're at about 9 1/2 months now. I could have created a new life in that amount of time, but we couldn't quite manage to recreate our home. C'mon insurance company! Get your act together! The miracle of life takes less time than this!

Anyhoo. Every passing event also reminds me of something I no longer have. This time it was a Longaberger basket. I loved that basket. We packed our hot dogs in it every year in foil to take to the fireworks show. I used it all year long, but I particularly missed it today. It is silly, the little things you miss, but you go to reach for something  you no longer have and this little current of raw emotion charges through you.

We spent the 4th once again at the top of the hill overlooking Parkville, just outside Herr House at Park U. It is a beautiful view and we get a great view of the fireworks.

Rough Stuff (with an ice pack on her hip, of course) playing with glow sticks.

The kids were entertained for hours by $1 glow sticks.

Fish

And if we got bored watching (or dodging) the flying glow sticks, there was always Little Miss 'may I show you an entertainment' Bean. She is performance ready absolutely anywhere. I did have to explain that she couldn't dance on the pole in the parking lot at the college though. Sheesh. Kids. Can't take 'em anywhere.

Little Bean

We were quite the fashionable family. The kids were sporting incredibly unprofessional manicures, courtesy of Mom.

Little Bean

Fabulous, no?

Tuna

Well...the kids thought so and that is really all that mattered. (Actually, they did not hold back at all. They told me EVERY time I messed up.)

Fish, Tuna, and Me

I, was sporting a totally holiday appropriate t-shirt and...wait for it...JEANS! Why is that significant? Because it has been two and a half weeks since that viscious, under-handed gallbladder attack and surgery and I am finally wearing something denim again.

Okay. Okay. They weren't buttoned. But they were on and that counts for something. And I only had to walk ten feet from the car so it's not like I was going to walk out of them or anything inappropriate like that, right?

Seriously, though. I had no idea this little band-aid surgery would be such a challenge. I can hardly pull myself out of bed without groaning in pain. I did have a laughing fit the day before and I'm sure that didn't help anything, but really...ow. 

So where was I? 

Oh yeah. Passage of time. Yada, yada, yada. 

The 4th of July has now passed and we are still in a rental house. This week we are looking forward to the arrival of windows, the completion of the little roof on the back, installation of the front door, and a house wrap. Wahoo!