Happy Independence Day

As I write this post, I am supposed to be in church. At least I had planned to go today since Drew is preaching. I try to go at least once a month during the summer months when there is no Sunday school. However, we were out until about midnight last night so I let the kids sleep in. It's 10 am and Mazie is still not awake yet! We went to the annual 4th of July party at Melanie's house. As usual we ate tons of great food and sang the night away. Lots of wonderful people were there, including Paige and Jason and Keaton and the weather was warm and breezy so we sat outside. The kids played water fights and all got along nicely. It was a terrific way to spend the day and celebrate.

It's actually been a long weekend of parties beginning with Canada Day on Thursday. We started out going to Downsview park where they had free rides and face painting, etc. but the entire city was there and the lines were about 100 people deep so we quickly headed out of there and went to the water park where there were only about 5 other little kids. The kids had a good time on the playground, playing in the water, and playing baseball with daddy and Uncle Jason. I enjoyed getting a little sunshine. Afterwards we had some of Jason's to die for ribs and then headed over to the Richmond Hill park where we watched fireworks. We didn't get home until about midnight this time either.

We had no plans on Friday but at the last minute I thought it would be fun to go to Milton to a farm and pick berries. They had some goats and rabbits that the kids enjoyed feeding and then Mazie got to go on a very short horse ride. We picked raspberries, strawberries and blueberries and drank fresh strawberry lemonade and ate strawberry icecream. Yum! It was a great day in the sunshine as well. Leo was very excited to go berry picking and we had to ration his berry eating on the way home. Later that night we babysat while Paige went out for her birthday. It was the first time for mom and dad to leave the little Rugrat and I felt honored because I remember the first time we left our own precious baby. Of course, he cried and spit up the entire time which meant we had a little difficulty getting our own kids down for bed at a decent hour and they were up a little late on this night as well. Thank goodness its summer. Leo actually snuck up at one point after having gone to bed. He was nervous to be downstairs all alone so I let him sit with me and watch The Wizard of Oz.

Hopefully everyone will get to bed at a decent hour tonight because the party is over and its back to reality. At least for me anyway. I go back to work and the kids begin their summer adventure camp. I believe tomorrow is library day.