4th of July

So we had a really fun 4th of July yesterday.  Briarcliff (the subdivision we live in) was doing a parade.  The sign I saw advertising it said to bring your decorated wheels and participate and gave the address where the parade was starting.

So we packed up all the kids and headed up to the back top corner of Briarcliff with their bikes.

Here is Riley.  He is Phillip's youngest (Phillip is Tres' brother)

The kids ready to be in the parade with Phillip in the back.  All of these kids don't belong to him by the way.  2 of them are Natalie's (Tres' sister who is here from California for the month) and one of them belong to Phillip's fiancee Annie.

And Dolly, she was marching in the parade with me too!  This was just before she spotted the mule who was in the parade...and she tried to go after the mule!!!  I couldn't believe it!  She spent the rest of the time all worked up over the mule.  geesh...

So, the parade was a bomb.  I don't mean da bomb.  I mean a bomb.  We won't be doing that again.  LOL.  It was mostly cars in the parade. There were a few other kids on bikes, but mostly it was cars.  And, hardly anyone was on the parade path to watch!  LOL.  I really think that the parade is more for the people in it than for the watchers.

It was too long and hot for the kids.  They were troopers, but we won't be doing that to them again.  The parade ends at the park in Briarcliff, where they had hot dogs and other food, and a water slide for the kids.  Plus there's a great playground there.  So next year, we've already decided, we're going straight to the park to watch the end of the parade and just play.  That will be better.

The rest of the day we just spent hanging around the house all together.  Unfortunately Ira and Judy couldn't be with us because they had a camp arriving that day.  Bummer.  We missed them.  But everyone else was here!  Natalie and her 3 kids.  Phillips and Annie and their collective 4 kids (actually collectively they have 6, but they're teenagers and had other plans), Mema, Tres and myself.  We hung out, ate lots of food, the kids played--it was just a nice relaxing day for the most part.  Thankfully since we were all exhausted from the parade and the heat.

Here is Natalie's youngest, Lily.  She's just the sweetest baby!  She's so incredibly easy for a baby.  Love her!

I'm not the only one who loves her.  Her uncle Tres can't get enough of her either.  :)

Some other random things.  Dolly has taken to sleeping with her head under our bed.  LOL.  It cracks us up.  It's like she's saying "it's too bright in here!"

And our "other" pets.  This was on our street a few weeks ago.  I turned on to the road heading home, and found this in front of me.  Twins!

They're in our yard constantly with their mother.  It's so cute!  I love the babies!

Otherwise in our life we're keeping pretty busy.  Tres is now the Associate Pastor at church.  Not sure if I've already told you that. He still has his youth and small group pastor responsibilities, on top of his now Associate Pastor responsibilities which is basically to help take some of the extra stuff off of Greg's plate so Greg can focus on counseling and preaching.

I am leading worship at church on an interim basis along with my friend Suzanne who has been leading worship for a while there.  We're alternating months for now while the church figures out what to do about a full time worship leader.  But in the meantime, I'm LOVING it.  I love leading worship!  I'm thoroughly enjoying every single moment of it, and I hope this continues for a while.

The church is also embarking on 40 days of prayer.  It started on Sunday, and as a church we're praying every hour of every day for 40 days.  We have so many things as a church that we are seeking from God, that and we just need some very clear direction on a lot of items at the moment.  So I'm helping to coordinate some of the corporate prayer events.  There's a prayer room that people can sign up to pray in individually, and we're trying to provide corporate events that people can attend all together.

The Mary Kay fiscal year just ended on the last day of June, and I was SO CLOSE to winning a Diamond Ring.  Ugh!  But unfortunately it just didn't happen this year.  But I was SO CLOSE, that I know I can do it this coming year!  So I plan to make it happen this year!

I've told you before about the woman, Tracy, that I worked with for several months.  Well, I've stopped working for her now sadly.  It was a hard decision to make, but I had to step back from something, I had way too many things going on and was feeling a little overwhelmed.  I miss working with Tracy...but I'm so glad I have the extra time to do other things that need to get done.

So that is most of our update!  I've got to run as usual, and will try to update again soon!