A Few July Happenings

 

(March - I think, tall green grass and barren trees)

Most of the time California (at least our neck of the woods) is beautiful and green; however, during the dry summer months the grasses dry out and become fire hazards.  Now I understand why California has so many wildfires.  

(July - dead grass and full trees)

Our greenbelt "hires" 400 goats to come and eat all the grasses down so it's less of a fire hazard.

Our nature lady, Donna, took us on a goat hike to teach us about the goats and dogs (there are 2 big dogs that keep the goats in line).

 

The kids think it is cool.  The goat herder lives in the greenbelt the entire time they are there (about 3 weeks).  He came out and let the kids throw them Lima beans (they eat the beans for protein).

I've been working on the preschool blog book, so every chance I get I've been trying to get that done.  I put these 2 in the bath and tried to get a couple pages done.  I was sitting just outside the bathroom door, and I could hear them laughing hysterically.  I should have known something was up, since that USUALLY means they are getting in to trouble.  I brushed it off and just thought they were having fun.  Well, they were having fun, but they were also being very naughty.  Grant got the large (Costco size baby wash) down from the window seal and dumped the entire bottle (brand new, BTW) into the bathtub. 

They were having a grand old time putting bubbles all over themselves. 

There wasn't much I could do about it now, so I let them play in the bubbles while I finished another page in my book.  Little twerps!!

I hosted book club last month and we read a book about Dolley Madison, so I made the treats patriotic.  Turned out cute, I thought.  The red-velvet cupcakes were great too.  I'll add them to my recipes eventually. I have so many to add, but who knows when that day will come.  I got the recipe from my SIL, Em.  Here's the link from her blog. Click {HERE}.

Our 4th of July was busy, but fun.  We started off with breakfast at the church.  

 

Adam sang the National Anthem for the flag ceremony.  He did great, as always. 

Next we headed to a friends house for lunch and swimming.  They have 2 dogs (a lab and another huge dog - Kenya, the dog we watched a year or so ago).  Their lab LOVES to swim, so the kids thought that was so cool to swim with a dog.

Then we came home and went swimming and had a BBQ with our couzees and the Wutkees.

We went through 120 sparklers in about 15 minutes.  It was Adelle and Stewart's first time with sparklers, so they were a little hesitant at first, but quickly caught on.

Noah always 'two-handed' it.

Lionel was a crazy man with the sparklers.  He would light 2 and then start running around in circles with them.  He wasn't afraid AT ALL of them or the fire.  In fact, I think a little fear would come in handy for that boy.  If not, Mary and Min had better have good fire insurance.

We did the sparklers a little early, because we didn't know if the Wutkees could stick it out until night time. They were troopers and stayed until the end.

Burning the dirt experiments.

Mary and I handed out the sparklers, then the kids lit them with the candles, and when they were done they stuck them in a cup of water.  Great assembly line. Notice the smokey air?  Our entire backyard was full of smoke with 8 kids running around with sparklers.  They all loved it.

Lined up on the curb waiting for the fireworks.

Steward, Ava, Charlotte, Freddie, Noah, Grand and Lionel (Adelle and Ethan were on the porch with their mom).

The dads lined up all the fireworks, so they could just go through them and light them as fast as they could. 

Adam started lighting them and realized that almost all of them were those pull and pop kind. Ha!  They looked like fuzes in the box, but obviously we didn't read the box.

We did have a few crowd pleasers though.  The kids thought it was awesome, so we consider it a complete success.  The Yangs spent the night and took the train home the next day.  We love having family and friends over to celebrate holidays with.  Happy Independence Day!