Fourth of July Weekend.

SO RAINY!!  We felt so lucky that the fourth was on a Thursday this year because Pete could take Friday off with no one really expecting otherwise, and we would have a four-day-weekend as a family.  We did have a weekend as a family, and it was nice, but man-oh-man was it wet!!  It started raining Thursday morning and didn't stop until about noon on Sunday.

Pete has a sinus infection, so we weren't sure if Ale 8 Man would make the Bluegrass 10,000 on the morning of the fourth, but a visit to the Urgent Treatment Center Wednesday night got him hopped up on an antibiotic and some allergy medicine so he was ready to run in the a.m.  (I have since gotten the same cold/infection and am not on any medicines because of le bebe in le tummy and it is NO FUN.)

Ellie asked for her Daddy as soon as she woke up, and was so excited when I told her he was running a race and that we were going to go watch him.  And once we had walked out to the course:  "My daddy run race," "My daddy race peoples," "peoples running," "that mommy running," "That daddy in blue shirt running."  Her phrases crack me up!  It rained the whole time, but not too hard, so we had a good time.

Pete ran 39:00 and came in 53rd - not too shabby for a field of over 5,000!

 

After nap, we were lucky enough to have been invited to a cookout at the Mack's house up in northern Kentucky.  Matt and Jen were spending the holiday weekend at Jen's parents' house and knew we would also want to see Baby Kate and the Wheelers - so so glad they included us!!  Alas, it was still raining, so we had to cancel plans for a kiddie pool and backyard cookout.  But, the Mack's have a lovely home, so we had an equally good time indoors.  Ellie practiced her big sister skills on Kate and I got to (briefly) catch up with Jen.  Jen's mom is a children's librarian, so there were many many good books for Ellie to read, and have read to her.  Another special treat - some of the books were in German!

Friday we left rainy Lexington again and drove to drizzle-y, cloudy Louisville and met Audrey and Andrew at the zoo.  Ellie was excited to go to the zoo and was talking about seeing animals and Aunt Audrey the whole ride to Louisville, but when we arrived, she was terrified!  We thought she'd be really excited to see the giraffes, but she wanted to be put in her stroller and pulled the sunshade down to protect herself.  She warmed up to some of the animals, and liked the flamingos, bears, tiger, zebras, lions, monkeys, gorillas, and hippopotamus.  She did NOT like (was afraid of) the elephants, camels, goats, giraffes, and probably several other animals.

Saturday morning was our friend Audrey's 2nd Birthday Party.  She had a tea party at her Vivi's house.  It had to be moved indoors at the last minute because of - you guessed it - rain, but again, Amy's mom has a lovely home, so once everything was inside, the girls had a really good time.  It was fun to see all of the girls in their cutest tea party dresses.  Ellie really liked sipping out of a real tea cup and playing dress up with pearls and little high heels.

Sunday morning was our first rainy day without anything do to or somewhere to go in the morning.  We spent most of the morning in our basement, before 9:30am we had played with Play Doh, stickers, stamps, markers, western town, blocks, balls, dress up, chalk, paint, etc.  We were so ready for the rain to end!  Ellie kept asking to play outside and go to the pool - I felt so bad explaining to her that we couldn't.  Then, finally, just before eleven, the sun peeked out!!  We went to Local Taco for brunch and came home and had a brief wagon ride around the neighborhood before nap.  After nap we went to Sonic for slushies (and a bag of ice for the pregnant lady) and came home to play in the backyard.  For dinner we were finally able to use our grill to have an American Cookout for Independence Day.  The menu was from the July issue of Cooking Light, and was so good!!

 

 

 

So that was our weekend.  Not quite what he had planned, but a fun four days together nonetheless.