Busy Days, Blessed Days

Sorry it's been a while, we had a busy week. We enjoyed a wonderful Fourth of July. We spent most of the day at my in-laws swimming and eating and visiting with family and friends. That evening a bunch of us went to our preacher's house. Jeff and Jill and their kids live right behind our town's high school where the fireworks display is launched. It was the perfect spot: great views of the sky and great company!

Yesterday Abigail and I went on a special mother-daughter date. We're big fans of the Cold Stone Creamery and one opened about 20 minutes from us. It's in the town we go to when we go to the mall or the Christian bookstore or Target or ... well, just about anywhere besides Walmart. Abby and I were the 2nd and 3rd people to get ice cream there which was a lot of fun. She didn't know where we were going so when we pulled up and she could tell it was opening, she was thrilled.

Ashland just enjoyed it's annual Balloonfest. It's a lot of fun, lots of family-friendly things to do. We didn't do this one, but check out something The Slaters (preacher's family) did. Go Emma!!

Last night Jimmy, the kids and I went over for the festivities. Usually if we go we'll go over for the glow which is late at night. This time we went and ate extremely healthy fair food (yeah, right), the kids played on the inflatable toys, and then we spread out our blanket to watch the balloon launch. We sat in the heat for about an hour and a half, listening to them say, "It's going to be about 30 more minutes before we can launch." At 7 they said 30 more minutes and we decided to get the kids home (did I mention they're both sick?) So we loaded back in Jimmy's little red convertible and left the fields. Just as we left, we saw one launch, so back in we went and sat in our car (kinda neat to not have a roof!) watching 34 balloons lift off the ground and directly over our heads. I had no camera, so here's a couple of shots from my cell phone.

It was a great day.