4th and 5th

Here are a handful of photos I have taken of late and not posted, I have gotten behind!

We stayed home on the 4th and cooked out on the grill, had a bonfire and then shot off $45 in fireworks in about 4.5 minutes.  hahaha  After the fireworks, we toasted marshmallows and sat around chatting about nothing in particular. 

The lights I made for Chinese New Year.

We stayed in so we could get to bed early, we had EARLY plans for the 5th!
Another tubing trip!

I was hanging upside down, so I left the photo that way.

We arrived at the meeting place about an hour from here at the appointed 8 something a.m.  It was early.
The Red Bull Girls showed up and gave us all energy drinks, which was lovely.


We got the vehicles distributed, a little longer than usual for that endeavor, our trip leader got lost...I  have no judgement to dish out on that one.  Just the so darn early in the morning aspect.  hahaha!

The float was over 4 miles long, our longest yet, and the water levels were scraping by on the 'okay' side of things.

We got in the river at 10:30 or so and headed off, it was a small group of maybe 20 this time, I imagine due to the 4th the night before and late evenings for many of the group.

We stopped for lunch VERY quickly.  I was surprised!
It was on a tiny island and the kids played and explored while they ate.

Dy had come with her older boys, they all had a ball playing in the quicksand-type mud in the stream that flowed around the island bit.

All too soon it was back to the business at hand-floating.

SEO likes for everyone to have a certain float-a rectangular affair that has a cloth covering.  They are $20 each and I can't shell out $100 on something that will likely pop, so we used what tubes we could from last year and bought new Intex tubes for $6 each.  They worked so well, we suggested them to Dy and also to Katy, so now between us we have a fleet of blue and camo tubes!  They come with little ropes and clips to hook together.

My efforts to speed things up!  Last year on this float, it took them 2.5 hours and this year we were in the water a full 7 hours.  The water was SLOW.

This old bridge pylon is the end marker, we were SO glad to see it before we saw the sunset! 

At the end, Dy and I drove several people back in our roomier vehicles to the put in to pick up their cars while the kids (and Matt) hung out at the river to play.

On the way back to pick up my guys, I saw this pony grazing RIGHT BY THE ROAD.
I pulled over and tried to get it to climb in my trunk.  It refused.  

 In all, a good weekend!  We had talked about going to the drive-in after the float, but it was dark before we even got home!  So we ate dinner and went to bed early again!  Yay!