things i'm lovin today- 4th of July edition

Tomorrow is one of my favorite holidays! 4th of July!!!

I'm so excited! Let me tell you why.

1. My grandparents and Aunt are driving in from Indiana to visit for the 4th. We don't get to see them very often, so we are all super thrilled!


2. We are spending the holiday out at the lake house, and I've heard that the fireworks display out there is spectacular. And I've also heard that it goes on all night, for about 3 nights straight. Ha ha!!




3. Mmmmm the food we are planning sounds amazing. Barbecue and watermelon and corn chowder and stuffed mushrooms, and I'm drooling.


4. The weather! Dude, as I'm typing this, it's only 79 degrees outside! That's unheard of for an Oklahoma July! Last summer, it was over 100 at this time.


5. This isn't really something related to the 4th, but it is something that I'm lovin' right now. Portia just looked up at me and said "Mama, I like you." Yes!

Day 14, Things I'm Lovin Today!

May 14th- 10 Things That Make You Really Happy

Man, I do this all the time! Only I call these posts "Things I'm Lovin Today."

Usually on days where I'm extra tired or cranky, or just need a reminder of how awesome my life is, I write a post about things I love. 

So here, for your entertainment, are Things I'm Lovin Today, Life Edition:

1. My family. I have the best husband in the world, and the most amazing little girls!

2. Dr. Pepper. It's smooth and bubbly and delicious and caffeinated.

3. Music. Moves my soul and makes life better.

4. Driving down the highway with the windows down and the music loud. Instantly boosts my mood. 

5. The Ocean. Man, I love the ocean. I seriously could live there.

6. Fireworks. The rumble-your-heart, shake-the-ground big-boomers. I actually just giggle the whole time.

7. Two words: Harry. Potter.

8. The Gospel of Jesus Christ. Knowing that there is a plan for me and that there is always hope is very comforting.

9. Naps.

10. Doing hair. I love meeting lots of people and making them feel better about themselves. Cheap hair products is a plus too!

things i'm lovin today, birthday edition

I know it's a few days late, but here's what I was loving on my birthday:

1. The awesome lunch with Brandon and the girls at Zio's. Our food was yummy, the babies behaved wonderfully, and we got to sit down at a nice restaurant as a family!

2. The 3-hour nap that Brandon let me take after my pasta kicked in.

3. The tasty cheesecake that our friends, Dave and Nine, treated us to! It was amazing!

4. The drive we took, just listening to music and talking while the girls snoozed in their carseats.

5. The fireworks that were going off over Bricktown that we saw on our way home. It's like the whole city was celebrating my birthday!!

6. This happened the next day, but its hilarious. Brandon's parents came into town on Saturday for Easter and were asking if we had bought a cake for my birthday, and I said that we hadn't. Portia looked up from her coloring and said empathetically, "Oh honey, it's alright. We'll get you a cake!"

4th of July

Here are some pictures from our 4th of July!

We went to the fireworks show at Rhema, and Portia had fun running around until it got dark.

Here's Portia and Brandon waiting for the show to start.

And me and Grandma (Ignore my weird hair. I'm pregnant)

Portia watched the first half of the fireworks like this:

and then hid and tried to go to sleep for the rest! Poor girl.

its highly likely i'm a huge dork

We spent the 4th in Broken Arrow and Claremore with our families, it was great! We had cookouts and went swimming, saw fireworks and UFOs, it was a blast!

Wait, what? UFOs?!?

Saturday night, Brandon, Brian and I were driving into Claremore, when we saw something weird. Up in the sky, there were about 10 floating orange lights. At first we thought they mist be fireworks, but fireworks explode and these didn't. So we pulled over and watched them for a while, and they started to fly away, some going faster than others, and some just disappeared completely.

We were a little weirded out, at least I was. Let me clarify one thing: at no point did we think they were aliens. We weren't afraid of getting abducted or anything like that. We just couldn't figure out what they could be. Maybe weather balloons? Some kind of aircraft? We didn't know.

The next day, we were visiting with Brandon's cousin, Ben and his wife Cali, and we started to tell our story. They immediately knew what we were talking about. Had they seen them too? Maybe the floating whatsits had been seen by a lot of people! Is there some facebook group I should join?

Then Ben and Cali told us about some lanterns that they had seen as part of a fireworks display. They were amber-colored, and floated into the sky. Yeah. Lanterns.

I'm a little embarrassed.

boom river

I love the 4th of July, it's actually one of my favorite holidays. I love summer, cookouts, people-watching, big-boomer fireworks, and the possibility of getting in trouble with the police. Confused? Let me explain.

My love of America's holiday came to me honestly; it's my mom's favorite holiday too. As kids, we couldn't wait for the 4th to finally come around! We would wake up that morning, just as excited as my mom, who would be arm-dancing around the house and clapping her hands over and over!! We would spend the morning swimming and playing outside, sometimes sneaking off with my dad to the fireworks store to stock up on Black Cats and Bottle Rockets.

My mom would buy chips and potato salad and my dad would fire up the grill. We would eat the classic 4th of July menu: burgers and dogs, corn on the cob, watermelon till we'd burst. We would then get hosed off, as watermelon is messy stuff, and get ready to go to the river.

In Tulsa, the place to be on the 4th is the river. They put on an AWESOME fireworks show, folks. But it's not just the fireworks that make it great.

We would show up hours before it got dark, just to beat some traffic and get a good spot on the lawn. We'd set out a blanket and some lawn chairs, equipped with a cooler full of Shasta, card games, roughly 48 bottles of sunscreen, and a portable radio. Let the people-watching commence.

Those of you who have spent time with my family know that we love a good roast. We will make fun of anyone, especially each other, and especially people we don't know. The 4th of July celebration at the river is a goldmine, chalk full of people just dying to be secretly teased.

There was a stage set up, with live bands and local celebrities (like newscasters, and one year the girl who sang in the May's Drug and Drug Warehouse commercials showed up. You know, "get the best of us, every daaaaaaaay, May's Drug and Drug Warehouse!") The music was Lawrence Welk material, at best, but there was always this woman we dubbed "the Flag Lady." She wore a flag dress. Not a dress she bought that had flags on it, but a dress made out of old flags. Really loose and baggy, like a very festive tent. Imagine this, only flags:

She also wore flag earrings, a flag headband, everything flag. No shoes. The same outfit every year. And she'd dance. I don't mean bob her head to the music, I mean arms above her head, eyes closed, full-body swaying to John Phillips Sousa. She was a gem. Then there were, of course, people who'd show up already drunk at 3 pm, those without teeth, and a lot of really classy mullets. Flag Lady was our favorite though.

When it got dark, the fireworks would start. Everyone tuned their radios in to a station that was synced with the display, and for a good 20 minutes, we would enjoy the best fireworks I've ever seen. There were the multi-colored poppers, the streaking screamers, and my favorites, the big-boomers that would shake the ground and take your breath away. All the while, Carrie and I sang "Proud To Be an American" and "Be Kind to Your Webbed-Footed Friend" along with the show. Then came the finale. Babies were crying, dogs were howling, my dad was laughing, it was glorious.

After the show ended, all 5 billion people would try to get up and leave at the same time, so rather than fight the crowds, we sat on our blanket and waited. While we waited, we talked and laughed and teased, and after enough people trickled out, we gathered up our stuff and headed for the car. The traffic was usually still pretty bad, so we drove around all the old neighborhoods in downtown Tulsa. There are some amazing houses down there, most built in the 20s, during the oil boom. I always loved that part.

We would finally venture home, and then have our own fireworks show. When we were really young, it consisted of sparklers and popsicles in the backyard, but as we got older, Dad would break out the illegal stuff. Don't get too excited, all fireworks are illegal inside the Broken Arrow city limits. I'm just talking about bottle rockets and cherry bombs. We would got out in the front yard or the school parking lot across the street and go to town! We rarely had bottles, so we got creative with our bottle rockets, sticking them in the ground, or holding them in our hands. (one time I lit my sweater on fire at the worst birthday party ever doing that, but that's another story). I remember one year somebody tied one to our mail box and it almost hit a neighbor's car! Hilarious! Almost every year, a police car would roll through the neighborhood, and a policeman would stick his head out the window and ask if we had been setting off fireworks. We would say "No, we are just standing outside in the middle of the street with sooty hands for another reason," and they would move on. After every last Black Cat and party popper had been laid to rest, we went inside, ate a few more slices of watermelon, and went to bed.

I haven't been able to go to Boom River for a few years, but I still love the 4th of July. Not only because I really am proud to be an American, but because it reminds me of my childhood and my crazy family, and how blessed I really am.

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