Dwayne and I had our first date on July Forth over two decades ago. 

It wasn't supposed to be a date originally. We were planning to meet up with a big group of friends to see fireworks in Downtown Charleston, South Carolina. But everyone flaked out for one reason or another, so we went alone. 

That ended up suiting us just fine. We discovered that we were soul mates, something we had begun to suspect anyway, talking for hours as easily and naturally as breathing or walking. 

So fireworks on the Forth are a tradition we just don't miss (except the year I was with my dad was in hospice many states away from Dwayne and the girls.) But I was glad to be with my dad, so we don't count that year as a miss. And Dwayne still took the girls to a fireworks show without me. 

We drove up to Waterbury, where we used to live. They always do a big show. We visited Barnes and Noble and Five Below, since we were set up nearby in the parking lot to get a good vantage for the show over Holy Land. The girls got books from Barnes and Nobel, of course, and we got a giant, outdoor chess from Five Below.

We always bring chalk for the asphalt.

We met Fernando. He's carrying Ziggy's old flag, since Ziggy has passed. Ziggy was a proud American immigrant who was known and beloved for waving American flags on street corners throughout Waterbury. We always got pictures with Ziggy at Waterbury fireworks shows, because he was always there, of course. So we got a picture with Fernando, too. Fernando says that he's proudly carrying on the legacy. 

We all worked together as a family and made the Classical Conversations President's Song into a patriotic work of art. 

We always read The Declaration of Independence aloud on July 4. Norah, our oldest, who has been hearing this every year since she was a toddler, recounted that she didn't understand much of it at first, but it unfolded for her more and more year after year. 

There are ice cream trucks. 

We brought seven layer dip for dinner and snacks, a cooler with ice-cold water and sodas, and sparklers, too. 

 

Refreshing Forth

What a lovely day spent at home! 

We haven't been home for a full day without plans in weeks, so even though it was a perfect day outside for the pond or the pool, we opted to stay inside the air conditioning and work around the house. 

We got so much done, yet it all felt so leisurely and restful. 

A few of the things I can remember include:

We did much cleaning and much organizing. 

We called Mom and Dad and chatted for a while.

I blogged two weeks worth of pictures and posts about our vacation. 

Avril and Adele did cross-stitching and watercolor and acrylic painting.

Norah finally finished all the Physics and Pre-Calculus required to graduate, and she bemoaned the fact that she could not keep going with Physics. The kid loves to fascinate over Physics. But she has no time. She is working so many hours to save for college. So sadly, Physics really can't be continued even for the fun of it. 

We watered flowers. 

We straightened bookshelves. 

The girls took buckets and trudged downhill to see if the berries were ripe yet. (They're not.)

We washed, dried, folded or hung, and put away, laundry, laundry, and more laundry.

Dwayne lovingly cleared out all the hairs that wrap, wrap, wrap themselves around the wheel of the vacuum. 

Three daughters = a lot of hair!!

Dwayne also assembled our new, larger art-storage boxes, then the girls transferred all their keepsake pieces of art to them.

I shared a lunch of crackers, tuna salad, and fresh tomatoes with my parrot. He perched on the back of the chair next to mine in the sunny kitchen, and had tiny bits of my bites and tiny sips of my water. 

Everyone took luxurious showers. 

Everyone read books silently.  

Dwayne did the cooking for dinner. He made spaghetti. 

We read a chapter of The Silver Chair aloud. 

We artfully arranged all the sea shells brought back from this recent vacation into a large jar and added it to the mantel. (We have one jar of shells for every year.) 

We baked banana bread, checked emails, made plans, filled in our calendar.

We signed the girls up for Vacation Bible School. 

I finished Academic Orientation for Classical Conversations. (I plan to tutor Adele's Foundations class next year, a big change from tutoring high school students the last few years.)

I watched "The Riot and The Dance- Water" with Avril and Adele. We received the DVD with our recent book order from Classical Conversations. We gave so much glory to God for His amazing creatures, literally gasping aloud at the wonders shown. 

And these are just the things I can remember from today.

Thank God for such a lovely, productive, yet restful day at home!

   

Reading in June

 In June, I read:

Cytonic 

(I'm a huge Sanderson fan, but I think this particular series has jumped the shark. Nevertheless, I'm committed now; I'm three (or is it four??) books deep in the series, so I have to read the next one, too, whenever it comes out.) 

The Green Ember 

Brideshead Revisited

The Rule of Saint Benedict

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Station Eleven

Saturday at Topstone

We went to Topstone late Saturday afternoon, our first visit of the season. The summer air was so warm that is was comfortable, even in the shade and as the sun was starting to go down. We swam, kayaked, lit the charcoal, read, swam some more, and eventually, had dinner of sizzling hotdogs with chips and fresh salsa at a picnic table near the water. Norah wasn't with us. She'd gone to visit her best friend in New York, a new privilege she has now that she's driving. More and more she is off doing something, so less and less is she with us. We're already adjusting to what it will be like when she's off to college in the fall. We did alright without her; We had a lot of fun. She did alright without us. She had fun at her friend's, too. 

We're home! And even made it in time to start some laundry and some grocery shopping. Once the car was unloaded, Norah promptly sat down to the piano. 

The girls had to take a bucket of the unwanted shells back to the beach before we left, so they said “Goodbye” to the ocean and took pictures of the sunrise and got a few more bug bites to take with them to Connecticut. 

We hugged Mom and Dad “Goodbye,” and Dad prayed over our journey. Mom and Dad always stand on the porch and wave as we drive away. Dwayne always gets tears in his eyes. Always. He did even at the end of the visits we made when it was just us, before kids, back when we were the kids. 

We stopped at Buccees for the first time. Wow! 

We stopped for the night in Statesville, North Carolina for the night. A local place, Twisted Oak, has some of the best food we’ve ever eaten and that is without exaggeration. We all ordered something different and shared everything.

Dwayne’s brother, Brandt, and his wife, Lisa, and some more of their kids came in late last night. We were all at church with Dad today for Father’s Day which was really special. We grilled burgers and dogs and had cake and ice cream to celebrate every recent event- graduations, birthdays, Father’s Day, even Flag Day. We played Chronology and several rounds of Codenames in teams of boys vs. girls and also in pairs and ate leftovers and snacks till late this evening. The cousins played some video games, too. We are packed and ready to hit the road back to CT before the sun comes up.