185: Celebrating the 4th

A full day of parades, powwow, baseball, the lake, and then food and fireworks with friends and family to end it. And then even some post-finale fireworks lantern lighting...and saluting apparently.

1: Plunging into the New Year!

As is tradition, a dip in Flathead Lake at noon.  That's three generations running in ahead of me (my mom, my siblings, & my daughter) and there is a whole gang of other family and friends not in the frame. I think we had close to 40 people in our lunch party at China Gate afterwards!

185: Happy Fourth!

Family, parade, powwow, lake, fireworks with friends. . . it was a pretty perfect 4th of July.

Celebrating St. Patrick's Day

My children have decided to add St. Patrick's Day to their lists of things to celebrate.

They really like celebrating things.

Azia designed a leprechaun trap a few weeks ago, complete with trap doors and ladders and miniature notes and clothes and prizes and money to lure them in. She added some syrup the night before. It appears the leprechauns were able to break out through the windows or possibly climbed back out the hole they made in the roof  by way of the shamrock necklace left behind. Azia is getting pretty crafty with her designs though; they may not be safe for many more years. Later in the day Michael advised the children that what they really needed was some whiskey, a bag, possibly a cat, and a way to lure the leprechauns into a drinking contest. It's nice to have uncles around for advice.

I'm pretty sure we started of the day with some sort of Irish luck. Just before midnight the ambulance was dispatched to a car wreck, where we ending up assisting a patient and doing some back boarding and splinting right in the middle of a giant ant hill. A half a dozen members of our crew, some firemen, and of course the patient, were covered with ants. We spent the whole transport to the hospital killing them. When we got to the hospital our ambulance floor was covered with dead ones. We apparently brought in a large number of live ones into the hospital as well. Soon the doctors and nurses were also pulling ants off themselves while trying to assist the patient. A few hours later we returned to the hospital with another patient and they had maintenance in the ER with chemicals trying to get rid of the insects.

And then a few hours later, it began to snow. . . so much for the nearly Spring thing. Everything was covered in white, including my car when I needed to drive it a few hours later. I thought we were done with the window scraping for the year.

As I was standing in my living room in the middle of the night surveying the kids' leprechaun traps and considering what I needed to get done before the morning, all the power went out. It was difficult to get very much done not being able to see anything so I decided it was probably sensible to just go to bed.

And then a little while later the ambulance radio went off again. There was still no power, which makes getting into our garage (where the doors are all automatic and operated by power) more difficult than usual. And once we were in, getting the ambulances out proved another challenge. We do have systems in place for things like this, but they don't always work as smoothly as we'd hope. Also, it's difficult to troubleshoot in complete darkness. Picture #1 illustrates our crew members (standing on the hood of the ambulance) trying to unlock the manual door opener. It seems a simple task when illuminated by the flash on my camera. See picture #2 of what the actual working conditions were.

We did get everything sorted out and the ambulance to where it was needed, but by the time we all got home it was pretty much time for all the enjoying of  St. Patrick's Day.

The kids woke up early and began reading notes painted around the house and examining the leprechaun chaos. Apparently leprechauns can paint and escape from traps in total darkness. They're quite crafty. 


After church we had a giant Irish dinner. Most of the credit for that meal goes to Deva, I think, which is quite a lot of credit because it takes an awful lot of food to feed our giant crew. Corned beef and cabbage and baked alaska for desert.

My kids and I ran up to the parade in Ronan, which was pretty freezing, but still fun.

Lex was possibly a little too brave when dashing into the middle of the road to retrieve candy.

Later in the evening we had shamrock pasta and Guinness brownies and Lex made a green pistachio cake. (Because ice cream and milkshakes were just not enough sweets for the day. . .)

While Azia spent her time designing a crafty trap and putting together a stylish outfit which included a lot of green, Zoran wrote letters to the leprechauns inquiring about their favorite NBA teams.

Before the end of the day the kids needed to watch Darby O'Gill and the Little People to begin strategizing for next year's leprechaun catching. 

363: New Year's Eve Hockey Game

Really, the players in this game are mainly a few dozen adults, but Zoran snuck in for the last quarter and Lex made it in for a few minutes at the end, too.

Celebrating the 4th

We made out usual rounds for the Fourth of July. 

We had a collection of cousins assemble to watch the Arlee parade.

We had a few superheroes to keep us safe. (Dylan later added an Amish-style hat to his superman cape and Easter basket outfit. Quite original.)

Mom braided a few heads of hair while we waited for the parade to start. We didn't even bring any of the kids' outfits since none of my kids wanted to dance at powwow, but I guess Azia didn't want to miss out on the braids. (She did leave them in longer than usual. . . a few hours. Usually she takes them out almost immediately after getting them done. She never wants anything in her hair. )

Dylan and Lex checking out the fire engine

Eating the popsicle before it melts. . . Some of the floats were throwing them and they are almost a good idea on these hot days, but they are half melted by the time the hit the ground!

Dev working with his pal Smokey.

I'm used to people who are annoyed by children and used to hearing people complain about them, but it's so fun to run to into people who seem to genuinely enjoy them. I don't know these people, but they were sitting next to us during the parade. At first they just kept bringing the little girls candy they picked up. Part way through the parade the lady came over and asked Lex for his hand to bring him over and talk to him and show him some of the other candy in their area they hadn't picked up. It was pretty cute to watch him visiting with them.

Checking out their loot. Many of the kids had nearly a an ice cream bucket full of candy!

We went over to powwow for lunch (after sitting in traffic for about an hour to make it the 1/2 mile over there. . .)

The boys waiting (not-so-patiently) for their food. But look how patriotic they look: red, white, & blue.

one of 7 or 8 Indian tacos from the Couture stand

The girls waiting for their food. Apparently poor Nana had to sit at the other stand.

Of course Grandma wasn't going to miss a chance to dress in red (shirt, socks, and matching lipstick) and celebrate.

The boys liked shopping. The girls liked it so much I didn't see them after they left the food stand.

SnoCones. I think Lex's favorite part of Powwow is the food. Specifically, frybread, ice cream and snocones.

When we got back into Mission it was so hot we had to take a break and find some water.

Azia searching for some fish. Surprisingly it seems she is not being bothered by her brothers for the moment. 

Afterwards we headed to Incasholas' for the rest of the evening.

We even got a visit from the ice cream truck.

Sajada and Azia enjoying some ice cream in the mini pool.

The boys checking out the guns. (And Israel holding someone else's drink!)

hanging out around the fire

Our veterans

Zoran

Azia-Rain