Thursday, July 3. Today was my Dad's birthday. He turned 53. Sophie absolutely adores him and while he was asleep on the floor, she cuddled up next to him and took a nap too.
Friday, July 4. The next several pictures are from the 4th of July. Every year, my family goes to the river and has a picnic and swims for a couple of hours. It hasn't rained in quite a while, but we woke up to the ping, ping, pinging of rain this morning. I immediately hopped on the computer trying to find radar scans to see if any more rain was coming, and I was happy to see that it was waaaaaayyyyy over in Arkansas. So, the trip was still on. We got over to my Granny's to get everyone and everything together. My cousin and his family from CA decided not to go because it was supposed to rain (which it DIDN'T!) We got down to the river and set up the picnic, took a swim, and then decided to eat. Well, we brought the BBQ, the beans, the desserts, the drinks, but we forgot one important item. UTENSILS!!!! So, my dad, the eternal Boy Scout, cut some cane poles and began to carve us some sporks.
Our eating utensils! This is going to be a new dinnerware we are going to develop for Target and we will also market it as the new diet plan cause you can only eat one bean at a time and one piece of slaw at a time. Very effective! By the time you get through the first 5 beans, you are so exhausted from the whole process that you just decide you are full.
Julie eating her bean (singular) with her cane spork.
While we were wading in the river, my dad found this egg. We weren't sure if it was a turtle or a snake egg, but there was not an embryo in it. It was really cool to touch though cause it was mushy like a hard boiled egg instead of hard like a regular egg.

While all of my cousins and sister brought their significan others, I did the next best thing and brought my single friends, and guess what? We had a blast!After the river, we got ready for a wonderful 4th of July party at Nikki's. In full fashion, it's the 4th and I wanted to celebrate with my sparkly sparkler hair bow circa 1989.So, I like pictures of myself and I'm going to put them up if I want to!This was a cool picture I took during the fireworks show put on my Jimmy and friends. One of the kids was shooting a Roman candle but I have no idea where the rest of the craziness came from. Very interesting though.

Best friends forever. Nikki was being an awesome hostess and we couldn't find her for this one. For some reason I was talking. I had a great time though!Saturday, July 5. My dad and I went to Lowe's this morning to look at some wood to use to redo our front porch. Then we headed over to Granny's house to pull up some old flooring in her living room. She has decided after over 50 years, to pull up the linoleum and finish the original hardwood flooring underneath it. It is gorgeous! It was pretty easy to pull up most of the linoleum but there are some places that were glued at seams that we are going to have to scrap off, but oh my gosh, it is gorgeous hardwood flooring!

So then I was inspired to come home and start a project of painting my bathroom, which I've been wanting to do for a year. So I started the process of pulling off the wallpaper. It was actually pretty easy! There were a couple of places that we had to really sit and scrap but for the msot part it came off in big sheets of it. I'm excited. I'm thinking a cute green color. I'm excited!