Tuesday, July 7, 2009

So Much is New!

We had a wonderful 4th of July weekend this year. On Friday, we went Geocaching (something we have not been able to do lately) with our friends, CacherX4. The crazy part is that although we met through caching, and although our families have spent a lot of time together and love hanging out, our 2 families have never been out geocaching all together! We went back to Newaygo State Park because the caches there were so well done and had a great time. We probably hiked a good 6+ miles through the forest, across the sand dune cliffs and down many trails. We had a lovely picnic lunch, ran into our friends Photobug2 and as we were leaving, saw some new cachers that we met at the event the week prior. They too had come back to tackle some of the harder ones. We finished with dinner in Sparta at Downtown Trini's and then hit a few more easy caches on the way home. A very long, exhausting but totally fun day...

Saturday was a day of firsts. My sister Anna, her hubby Shaun, and their daughter Hailey, met us in the morning so that we could attend the Cascade 4th of July Parade. The girls had never seen a parade before and they had a ton of fun waving to everyone going by. Tara's favorite part, of course, was the candy being thrown out to the crowd! After the parade, Cascade hosted a carnival with free rides, inflatables, face painting, balloons, clowns, you name it! The twins rode their first pony, went on their first carnival ride and raced each other in the obstacle inflatable. The weather was a little iffy but we had a good time. We also went downtown to see the fireworks that evening, got into our favorite secret spot for viewing and enjoyed the show. We've been spoiled by Thunder over Louisville, but they weren't bad. The girls didn't care and Mike wouldn't be happy if we didn't see at least some kind of fireworks on the 4th.

Sunday, my parents took the girls for the afternoon and evening while Mike and I worked on the house some more. Mike installed a new set of temporary steps leading up to the front of the house since someone was going to be seriously injured on the old ones. I continued to work on the painting of the family room, which I have to say, it the worst painting project ever. I seriously will not be changing any colors in that room for a very long time. At least it is done now, curtains are hung, artwork is on the walls and we are picking up some furniture tonight that will help to finish it, at least for now.

The big house warming party is on Sunday and I am going to do everything in my power to be ready. And if I'm not, oh well. The house still looks 100x better than when we bought it and I'm proud of all the work we have been able to accomplish. Now, back to the grind....

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