Family, Fun, and Fireworks

WARNING...Long post!

We went up to Dallas over the 4th of July weekend for a much anticipated visit with David's brother Peter, his wife Stephanie, and their 4 kiddos, Mary, Nick, Daniel, and John. The kids have been looking forward to seeing their cousins for weeks :-).

We had lots of fun planned for the weekend. The kids stayed up way too late Thursday night talking in the dark, but we were up bright and early Friday morning so we could go blueberry picking in Canton.

I was particularly eager to get my hands on fresh blueberries (at half the price of the grocery store), and have plans for blueberry muffins and blueberry cobbler this week...yum! So it was hot, sweaty work, but we did get 2 gallons after 2 1/2 hours of picking.

Thank goodness we started around 9AM...the kids were done for by 10:30. If you can't take the heat, blueberry picking is not for you...trust me.

Here's the farm we went to....The Berry Bush. The staff were very nice, and they had a restroom and free ice water.

We stopped at a Mexican restaurant for lunch on the way back to Allen. The hostess took one look at our party (4 adults and 8 kids ages 10 and under), and seated us in the back of the restaurant, which was quite separate from the rest of the place. We had the nicest waitress on earth...she brought us pitchers of water, plenty of salsa and chips, and answered every request with, "No problem honey...I'll be right back!" It is so great to have a waitress who is not intimidated or resentful of a large party with hungry kids.

After we got back to Allen and everyone had baths/showers, snacks, and naps, we had (what else?) blueberry pancakes for dinner, and headed over to downtown Plano for a free patriotic concert by the Plano Community Band. It was a great concert, the kids got free flags, and we left right before the mosquitoes started biting.

At one point, Gabriel was content to sit on his Uncle Peter's lap and munch on raisins. Darn kid...he'll only sit still long enough to eat!

Mary and Rebecca

Saturday morning...Peter, David, and the 6 oldest kids went bowling. The two youngest, John and Gabriel stayed home while Stephanie and I made 4th of July cupcakes. I got to use her fancy Wilton decorating tip for the frosting :-).

After bowling and lunch, Stephanie and I went out to a couple of furniture stores to look for a new couch and love seat for her living room. It's always fun hanging out with Stephanie for some uninterrupted girl time...in this case, shopping time.

I had to take pics of the kids too of course...in their 4th of July t-shirts.

We got back just in time to get things together and go to Grandma Reisinger's house for swimming and dinner. David's parents have a great pool, which they had completely redone last year, complete with a diving board, and slide...the kids' favorite.

Gabriel went down the slide once, and wanted to do it again...so I thought. But he freaked out and wouldn't go down again willingly...even though I sat him in front of me and we went down a second time. Later on, we put him towards the bottom of the slide, and Peter would catch him...he much preferred this. I think he was scared because the ladder is pretty high, especially from a 2-year-old perspective.

Grandma and Grandpa fed everyone hot dogs, hamburgers, chips, potato salad, watermelon, and cupcakes, and then we went out to a local church that hosts fireworks every year. We got settled on our blankets, Stephanie broke out the glow-sticks, and the kids ran around and played until 9:30 when the fireworks started. David was tired (he was getting over strep), so he took Gabriel back to the house and I stayed with everyone else.

Left to right: Nick, Joshua, Daniel, John, Rebecca, Mary, and Christina.

Christina kept complaining the fireworks were too loud, but she was smiling after the grand finale.

Poor girl, we didn't get home until after 10PM, and she feel asleep in the van on the way home.

Mass on Sunday morning was at 10AM. We had lunch...

one last tickle fight...

then we packed up stuff and headed home.

Now all I have to do is wash, sort, and freeze 2 gallons of blueberries (I'm halfway done as of this afternoon), run 6 loads of laundry, and restock the fridge...we are out of everything (except blueberries of course!).

Hope your holiday weekend was a BLAST...ours sure was!