The Fourth of July and the blogs that shall never be blogged

 Before the fourth of July came and went, was the Cedar Bluff vacation with my family.  Unfortunately, that came and went nearly a month ago... and I don't really see having the energy to put together a post about it.  So... I'm going to direct your attention to my lovely, darling sister's blog.  She did blog about it, and I supplied a good portion of the pictures :).  Here you can find day one, and here you can find days two and three.

Fourth of July weekend was busy, but we had a blast (until I got food poisoning, it was kind of downhill from there).

Miss Anni got her first haircut from the woman who not only gave Daniel his first haircut, but also the haircut he had for our wedding.  I haven't been able to dig out his haircut picture yet, but I will, oh, I will :).  It was a very little one, she had grown a very tangled little mullet in the back, so Paula just trimmed it up a teensy bit so it would grow in a little better with the top.

We don't have any stairs but outside stairs in our apartment, but our doctor wanted Anni to work on stair climbing.  She has mastered my in-law's stairs... which is both a tiny bit nerve-wracking and exciting!  She likes to stand at the top and cackle at everyone below... and then bump down the stairs with me :).

I made my first ever batch of homemade lemonade.  Anni helped.  Supposedly it was good... I got a text from a friend a few days later telling me he was thinking about my lemonade :).

... and we celebrated my brother-in-law's birthday.  Not only was it a blast to hang out with him again, but I got to request old stories of him and and my hubby when they were little :).  They were such adorable little blonde boys!

Then came the fourth.  It was brutally hot... which should have signaled us to avoid the fair we were headed to... but we got Miss Anni all dressed up (she went through three hats that day, each one cuter than the last).

See those pink cheeks below?  This was only 10 minutes into getting out of our cars at the stampede.  It was so, so hot!

We soldiered on... patted animals big (really, really big) and small.  Anni's favorite was the Alpaca, although this was the one animal in the petting zoo that went out of its way to avoid her.

And then, after spending a good half an hour in the art museum to cool off, we headed back out  to watch the lumberjack show.  If possible, it felt hotter.  We sat in the shade of the bleachers, occasionally straining to catch a glimpse of the action.  And, this may be one of the few times I ever say this, but thank goodness for McDonald's.  They came around with free mini fruit smoothies and gave each of us two since they were melting.  They were tasty and Anni loved them.  Plus, they cooled us down just long enough to decide to stay for five more minutes before we left. 

In those last few minutes, we bought Anni a cowboy hat and took her on the carousel... which was seriously the fastest carousel I have ever been on.  I spent the entire time trying to keep her from sliding off the horse and the hat from sliding off her head.  I should have spent the extra money to get myself a ticket so we could sit on the bench seat.  Next time... except probably not another next time there...
 

Oh!  And I didn't mention it, but we were there with the most lovely couple!  Mark is a long-time friend of Daniel's and was a groomsman in our wedding (and taught me how to properly make pie crust) and Erika is his beautiful, charming girlfriend!

The End.