Happy flippin 4th of July

Happy 4th of July. My least favorite holiday. Why you ask?
OK here is the story..
I was having a great time with my 4 children on our 1st ever 4th of July together since their father had gone. I was originally very sketchy on this thing anyway since I was (and still am) uber-afraid of fire. However, after 2 hours of sparklers, wheels, snakes, fountains, and black cats we made it and I was so proud of us for NO burns or even near misses whatsoever. Hey, I always look at that glass as half-full.
Anyway it was getting on towards 11 pm and I was thinking to myself that this fire eatin' momma stuff was pretty ok when my darling daughter Tobi came up to me in her Rainbow Bright pajamas and informed me she had something in her nose. And just like that the serenity of the evening was shattered. I tried to think it was a little thing and I could ignore it, but the only beads in a house full of 3 toddlers were very large and snapped together.... After waiting sseveral hours in the emergency room with 4 children (a very fun trip, I recommend it for all sadists everywhere) a doctor who had been treating burns all night looks up her nose and says to me "Is it the pink bead?" I told him I did not actually see the bead before the disaster or it would not be there, and how many were up there anyway?
From that date on I have NOT participated in the 4th of July except once in California when my friend Pamela assured me she would "do everything" and my children would be fine and have sooooooo much fun. She grew up in Redding and knew the best spot to see the fireworks up on this hill above the stadium. We were so close to where the fireworks were detonating, that when any of them went off it set off the alarms on the cars around us. Just stompin' screamin' good fun. Needless to say I peed myself.
There will be No fireworks in my driveway and no I do not go see them either.

Reunion and mice.

This is Friday of my first vacation in at least 5 years. It has been wonderful. I do regret that we did not get to see much of my daughter Sarah and her family because she stayed with Tobi in Colorado Springs. I did however have the usual disaster-filled week one can expect with a giant family gathering. All this came to a head last night when we discovered that a mouse had moved into our house while we were at Tobi's and the Pirate Pool.
Ok here is the week:
Last Friday night Kale locked us out of our car at the church. We only waited 3 hours for the lock smith. Saturday and Sunday we had Cora and Alec over for the night.
Monday was work. I do weekly payroll and it must be done by Wednesday at 7am, so I did it and left for the vacation.
We spent Monday night with the whole gang at Rudy's and then Tobi's house so we could get up at the but-crack of dawn and go to Garden of the Gods and have a family portrait taken. Absolute chaos and terrific times were had by all. My ears are still ringing from Kale's whine fest there. The photographer was like 9 months pregnant and I thought she would surely give birth in the hills. All the family wore red, white, or blue.  After getting lost ... oh an hour or so we ended up having a great time.
Wednesday we had a trip to the Pirate Pool in Lakewood. After being lost for two hours we were only there a couple of minutes when a lifeguard kicked Phoenix out for not having real swim trunks on. Britt went to the store to get trunks and then when they walked back into the pool a kid went #2 in the pool and we had to leave. At our second job a truck exploded next door and the firetruck locked Britt in the gated yard for a few hours. Dakota came over that night and we had great fun the next day at the Pirate Pool a deux.
Then we went home where the darn mouse was really determined to kick us out of the house. Brittany spent the next 10 hours screaming and clinging to the roof of her room. The boys got out brooms, dust pans, knifes, and a water gun to hunt the mouse down and kill it.
Believe it or not I went to the grocery store and bought 2 mouse traps that were both worthless . Murphy's law of mouse traps: The probability of both traps in the package not working is directly proportional to the brazen taunting of the mouse it is being bought for.
 The traps will NOT stay open. I should have known better than to not buy the glue boards or old fashioned wooden traps. So we were all up till 3 am chasing this stupid mouse. Naturally, the dogs and cats were following it around also. Children and rude dogs and cats.. oh my. Phoenix threw up and Kale was dead on his feet from nearly drowning earlier.
Today I slept from noon to 5:30pm to catch up on the sleep I did not get in the last week.  Tomorrow it's off to the airport for us with Sarah. Then back to work the second job. I'm actually looking forward to a boring week.
The motto for this week was if it ain't broke... it will be in a minute.