4th of July 2017

4th of July 2017

The 4th of July turned out to be a pretty hectic and crazy time. At the end of June my mom and her three remaining siblings spent a weekend at the lake sorting through my grandma's belongings. My mom's siblings took what they wanted and basically said sayonara and left two houses full of stuff (my grandma's house and its adjoining cabin and six garages full of stuff ...mostly junk...to deal with) plus my mom wanted to at least get partially moved out of her house so that she could sleep at the lake and could put her house on the market. That still hasn't happened. My out-of-state siblings all returned back to town just a few weeks later to help with that enormous undertaking. It still isn't even close to being done and it is going to take months. Knowing the huge undertaking before us...my siblings moved up their vacation time to come to the lake earlier. Unfortunately, this screwed things up for Reilly who had purchased her plane tickets months ago and already had her time off scheduled. She was stuck and couldn't rearrange things and ended up coming up later in the month which was a bummer for her.

The days preceding the holiday were work days and the days following the holiday were work days (for the adults and Kam) with really only a break on the fourth. I'm not going to lie it was exhausting. It was also super hot, emotional, and tempers were flaring. It wasn't our best week as a family. In fact, it was pretty dreadful. So much arguing.

My first walk through my grandma's house after its gutting had me in tears. I don't do well with change and seeing her house stripped of her belongings and being painted and changed was wrenching even though I know that the changes made are positive ones. The lake house and cabin and property have just been slowly falling into disrepair over the past few years. But despite all of that, we did manage to have some fun and we did have a great fourth of July celebration. The cousins had a ball and enjoyed one another despite all of the drama, tempers, work, and exhaustion of the adults.

4th of July food Prep began bright and early:

My brother Kirk making a fantastic brisket.

Stacey made her buttermilk biscuits.

We decorated:

Jaylah, Bryn, Elle, Kaiya, River, Ailey

We got spruced up in our red, white, and blue...which included some bright red lipstick for these firecrackers!! Such cute girls.

The cousins minus Reilly and Kam: Front row: RJ. Middle row: Kaiden, Jaylah, Bryn, Elle, Kaiya, Kirin, River, Ailey. Back Row: Dane.

Uncle Tyler helping Dane tie his tie.

The boat was decorated for the yearly boat parade and the water balloons were filled:

Traditional 4th of July pictures were taken:

Cute boys!! Kam and Kaiden

Then it was time to head out for the boat parade. We had two boats in the parade this year: the ski boat and the fishing boat.

Elle, Dane, Jaylah

Meki

John, Kam, RJ, and Kaiden

The parade always starts with Lady Liberty leading the way.

Ramon and Kelley defending our dock against our lake nemesis who comes around squirting people on their docks with a fire hose. The boat parade is really one big lake water fight and it is always a lot of fun!!

The rest of the day was spent enjoying the water and eating:

Jaylah and River

John and Ty

Then it was time for fireworks:

We had a great fireworks show this year!!

Bryn sacked out in the boat and under the floaties during the fireworks. Poor kid!!

The rest of our family reunion truly was a bunch of long hot sweaty work days...all day...every day. There was/is just so much to do. My grandma never sorted all of the belongings of her parents and her in-laws and other family members. She literally saved every thing. As a child of the depression she had boxes of ripped out zippers and collars and every receipt for everything that she ever bought in her entire life. 45 years worth of old rotten food storage items. We found boxes labeled "Nelle's bathroom cabinet", "Ladye's bathroom cabinet", "The Folks bathroom cabinet". After these various family members died she literally just put all of the contents of their bathroom cupboards in boxes and sealed them up. Old shampoo, half used shaving cream, old tooth paste, half full bottles of lotion. It was crazy. There was just so much literal garbage. Like I said there are several months of work still to be done.

Moving my mom's furniture

We also had to move all the big and heavy items from my mom's house while there were a bunch of people to help.  My mom has nearly as much stuff as my grandma. Plus there were so many repairs that needed to be done and still need to be done to the lake house and to my mom's house.

When we weren't trying to kill one another...and believe me the struggle was REAL...we felt a lot like this:

We were all going crazy!!

The tweens were great to babysit all the little kids all day long while the adults and Kam worked but they managed to have some fun too.

Kaiya, Dane and Ailey

The younger kids played and swam and tried to keep out of the way:

Bryn has gotten to be such a great little swimmer this year!!

I definitely did a lot of night swimming to rinse off all of the dust, dirt, and grime from the day. Plus it was super hot.

We did have a few bonfires but I attended very few...I was so freaking tired. Tyler and I couldn't wait to say good-night and good-bye and head to bed each night.

Finally our week was over and everyone headed home for some much needed rest. We were only home for a couple of days before Reilly flew in and we headed back out for ten more days.

All in all, we got a lot done and managed to have some fun...especially on the 4th of July. God Bless America. :)