Happy 4th!

First of all, Shannon is here, and she is doing pretty well. She is tired, because the plane was delayed last night. There were thunderstorms right over the Denver airport, so they weren't even allowed to leave Phoenix until about 90 minutes after they were supposed to.

Then she stayed up really late, texting with/talking to friends. And she was up at about 7:30 this morning, which really surprised me. I figured I'd have to drag her out of bed so she wouldn't miss the big 4th of July parade this morning. And when I say the big parade, I mean about 20 kids in our neighborhood, on decorated bikes and scooters.




We went and bought some streamers and a couple of small flags at Target yesterday, and we already had a red, white and blue pinwheel, so Kylie was all set.



This kind of event takes lots of planning, people. Lots of planning...and cookies.

This is Kearny. Kierney. Kierny. I have no idea how you spell it, but could she be any cuter? She and her sister Sydney (age almost 6, Kylie's new best friend) live next door to us. When I asked her how old she was, she said she was 20. I thought that was cute. Turns out she is 20 months old. That was freaky, that she knew that.

Just when I thought Kylie couldn't be any more red, white and blue, someone handed out the star-shaped sunglasses.

Getting ready to start the parade...

And there they go! They go down the street to where it crosses, up the other cul-de-sac, then turn around and come back down. It takes about 10 minutes. But what I couldn't believe is that there were people out on their porches, clapping. And you thought I was kidding when I said this was a big event.

After it was over, there were cookies and more cookies and some juice boxes. Then we all sat around on someone's lawn and chatted.

The kid that lives three doors down from us has a mother-effing SNAKE. The kid in the orange Texas shirt, it's his snake. Kylie was all, "Hey, take it over there and show my mom!"

And I screeched, "No! Keep that thing away from me!" Because I have a little sort of snake-phobia. As I write this, Kylie is playing over at the house where the snake lives. Better her than me.

When I asked Steve to get Kylie's scooter out of the street, this isn't exactly what I meant. But at least he's patriotic about it. See the red shirt?


Tonight we're going to grill some burgers, then we're going over to the neighbor's house for drinks and fireworks. You know how in AZ people go to Mexico to get fireworks that are illegal in AZ? Well, here there are a lot more fireworks that you can buy legally. So what people do here to really ramp it up, is they drive up to Wyoming and get stuff that's illegal in CO.

I was told there's going to be a pretty good show in our neighborhood tonight. Hopefully there are no arrests. I think the main show is being put on by an 18 year-old kid that just graduated from the high school that Shannon will be attending. He seems pretty cool. So does everyone else around here. I'm sure it will be fun, but I miss my friends. Jen, who reads my blog, and Kati, who says she does, but she totally doesn't. I wish you guys were here.

Oh, remember when I was talking about the sweet (FREE) deal we got on the cage for Shannon's future guinea pig that I said she could have? Well, this is the cage. But that's not a guinea pig.

We went to the pet store today, and she fell in love with a 12 week-old Holland lop bunny.

She doesn't have a name yet, but Shannon's thinking of calling her Beast. Perfect, no?