July 4th!

All last week I had been debating whether or not to go in to work one of the days this weekend. I need to work some extra hours in the next 3 weeks and I thought this 3 day weekend, especially with Josh's busy schedule, would be a good time to work some of those hours. After much deliberation, I realized that a 3 day break would do me good and I had lots I wanted to accomplish, so instead of working, I figured out how to fit in all the stuff I wanted to do. I'm not done yet, but I still have the rest of the day.
On Friday night, Josh and I went out to dinner at one of our favorite local restaurants. It's a mexican place and it's a totally different experience depending on if you eat on the patio or inside. Since it was warm, sunny, and we weren't quite up for the craziness of the patio, we ate inside. We had a nice meal with my favorite dessert (this place has the best flan ever!) then headed out for a dress shopping trip at the mall. It was pretty much a total failure because dresses just aren't made for the combination of body parts I have. We got some Godiva out of it though, so the mall trip wasn't a total bust.
Saturday, Josh had some extended work to do at the birdyard, so I took off to the same orchard we went strawberry picking at a few weeks ago. I'd seen the tart cherry trees while we were there for strawberries and decided I wanted to pick some. They also had black raspberries which are my favorite berries ever. Not only do they taste incredible, but they remind me of the time I spent with my grandparents in the summers when I was a kid. I'm still working on perfecting a black raspberry pie so it's as good as my grandma's. I'm close, but I think everything is better when a grandma makes it for you! Anyway, I keep hitting this orchard right at the end of the picking season for each fruit I go there for. There were still tons of cherries but they were so high up in the trees that I couldn't get them even with the use of an 8ft ladder. It took a bunch of tries to get the ladder positioned just right in one of the trees, but once I got a good spot, I was able to pick a ton of cherries. My "ton" ended up being close to 7lbs. I drove to the other side of the farm and picked 3 or 4 lbs of black raspberries. I wanted to go crazy and get tons of them to freeze, but the plants had so many thorns and all the easy to reach berries were already picked through. I was a lot braver than most of the other people there and found lots of nice berries hiding in the middle of the bushes. Once I knew I had enough for at least a pie though, I gave up since I was hot, hungry and my hands were full of little thorns.
I stopped at our favorite local grocery store and spent way more money than I should have. Josh's brother was coming to visit, so I used his visit as an excuse to buy some things I normally wouldn't (milk, bacon for breakfast the next day...) and then came home to recover from the heat. I had some lovely online company to chat with from Sweden while I cooled off and then made dinner. Jarron got here shortly after Josh got back from the birdyard and we had dinner. I offered to make a pie for the boys if they would go get vanilla ice cream but they both declined (black raspberry pie without vanilla ice cream would be a travesty!). Jarron did what he always does when he visits family and fixed Josh's computer. He also helped me get some old pictures and files off my old laptop (by help, I mean that he threw me his jumpdrive once I managed to boot up the computer and let me use it to transfer the files to my macbook).
In the morning, Josh went to take care of the birds and Jarron and I slept in. I made the super yummy aforementioned bacon when Josh got home and we all finally finalized our plans for our British Columbia wedding trip in 3 weeks. Jarron left to pick up his girlfriend around 1:30 and we left shortly thereafter to go to our 4th of July destination.
Like last year, we headed up to Jenny's parents house to celebrate the 4th. They have a pool and since it was super hot, it was so nice to go swimming. Josh even managed to get in the water and neither freeze to death nor drown. Jenny and I decided that when Josh and I have a baby, we'll have Josh tag along to the super beginner swimming lessons and see if a professional can teach him how to float. That, or all Leisenring's are made of lead and it's physically impossible for them to float! We mostly hung out either in the pool or under the shade umbrellas for most of the afternoon. Ellie was napping when we got there and she was really slow to wake up. We had a yummy cookout dinner then swam and lounged some more until it started getting dark. Josh, Jenny's husband Brent and her brother Ben were in charge of the fireworks show. Jenny made a little campfire and we toasted some marshmallows for s'mores. I think Ellie ate and entire little packet of graham crackers, which was fine with us since she had crushed them, rendering them useless for s'mores. I ended up with Brent and Jenny's new puppy Riley on my lap for the fireworks, mostly as a security blanket (I'm very wary of backyard fireworks!). They did a good job with the show and we had no small fires or fireworks launching the wrong direction or anything. Ellie loved the show and kept alternately yelling "WOOW!!" or her version of "two" which in Ellie-speak means "do it again." She could hardly keep her eyes open, but she was really mesmerized. The puppy is sorta deaf, so he had no clue what was going on and just happily lounged on my lap (he is also the laziest puppy in the world).
Today I have plans to turn my cherries into jam and my raspberries into pie. I was thinking if making some homemade yogurt, but I decided against it. I got some vanilla ice cream, so we should be good to eat pie this evening. Josh is out hunting turtles and I'm mostly just trying to take it easy and stay out of the insane heat/bad air quality.
Pics: July 4th Album