4th of July Recap

We started our 4th of July celebration with a trip to Oshkosh on Friday, July 2. We had a few beers and some yummy food outside on the river at Beckett's with Courtney, Paul, and Tizita. We stayed overnight and hit the Farmer's Market early on Saturday. Courtney had a booth with all of her homemade goods. We bought lemonade and kettle corn and then John, Tizita, and I headed to Watertown get the big holiday celebration underway. Courtney and Paul joined us later in the afternoon after taking down the booth.

Alissa and Cheddah joined us for lunch. Tizita cannot get enough of her Uncle Cheddah. She was attached at the hip to him the entire weekend. I don't think he minded it one bit. We celebrated Cheddah's birthday on Saturday afternoon.

In the afternoon we went over to Kev's pool for what was the perfect pool day. The water was so warm and we all had a great time cooling off. I successfully rode the turtle and

we all had fun making big long parades with all the floaty items.

We enjoyed spaghetti pie for dinner and then had mom's infamous ice cream cake and

frosting for dessert. Cheddah loves his frosting so I whipped up three different kinds and we dipped all sorts of items in the frostings. It was a great birthday celebration.

On Sunday we all (7 of us) piled in the Taurus and drove to visit John's dad at the nursing home. Courtney and I ended up in the back seat. It was a bit stuffy, but we had us some fun back there.

MaryAnn had a nice picnic set up outside of the nursing home. We all enjoyed many yummy snacks and had a nice visit with Jack.

Tiz spent some time up in a tree on the nursing home visit. When we returned from the nursing home visit, we checked out the park. Tiz and I rode the apples, I wish we had the camera, but we did not. We headed up to get ready for the fireworks.

A long, lost friend, Vanessa Hubbard and her family joined us for the fireworks. Vanessa and Courtney were friends since they were four months old when I met Vanessa's mom, Terri for the first time. Time and distance and busy lives have gotten in our way over the years, but seeing Vanessa on Sunday night was like no time had passed. It was such a joy to catch up with her and meet her husband and sweet little ones.

On Monday, we sat in the heat to watch the parade. It was the same parade that we see every year and I will be doing a post on the parade in a few days.

Tizita did get this ribbon from a man on a float.

After the parade, we had our 4th of July brats and then headed over to Kev's pool for some more swimming. Alissa and Nathan went home after the swim and I headed home with Tizita and Courtney for a few days in Oshkosh while Paul worked in Madison.

As usual, it was a fantastic 4th of July. Many new memories! My dad loved the 4th of July and I like to think that he was smiling down on all of us as we enjoyed his favorite holiday!