Gettin' Ready - for the 4th and big announcement tomorrow!

Remember earlier this week when I said I was going to clean my craft room so Lauren could stay in it next week.  Well...  at least the floor is cleaned off & you can walk through the room.

I thought that maybe before I cleaned everything up that I should get out all my patriotic items and see what I have for the sale next month at Room With a Past.  Here's some of what I came up with.

Here are a few new items -- "key" rings!

I also have three boxes of things to go into the parking lot sale!  I think those are my favorite sale months at the room.  So much fun & so much activity.

Sorry about the photo quality.  It's been a dark & rainy week here in NorCal.  Sure doesn't seem like June when you're sitting in an office with a heater next to you!

And a few more measuring tape bracelets!

I'm also getting ready for a big announcement tomorrow.  Still working on a few details so come back later!

Oh, Lauren... don't worry, it really will be clean by the time you get here.  Or at least clean-er!

The Singing Flag

Warning... LOTS of photos in this post!  We didn't make it to the family reunion in Texas but we did participate in our new California tradition -- The Singing Flag.  In order to get good seats you have to show up in the morning to stake your place.  We were there at 5:30 am with our tarps & blankets.  As you can tell, it was a little early for me & Lauren.  But Angie was wide awake.  We decided to sit on the side this year instead of the center.  Before the show started we decided we'd sit on the other side next year because this was our view at the beginning.

It was fine after the sun went down.  Gary was mad because the lady in front of him had a huge hat.  :-)

Jordy passed the time blowing bubbles.

Here's a view of part of the crowd just to give you an idea of how many people where there.  We're guessing 5,000.

A new couple joined us this year.  They moved here from Idaho & joined our Bible study.

I'm not sure what song Gary is singing here.

But in this one he's singing Old MacDonald!  We were chicks this year.

I didn't take any photos of the fireworks... just enjoyed them.  I think Lauren might have some good ones with her new camera.

Hope everyone else had a great 4th, too!

And since it's the first Monday of July today is Market Monday!  Click here to see all my Etsy team members that are participating today:

Happy Independence Day!!!

We started our celebrations last night by going to the Singing Flag with friends.  Angie made these patriotic cupcakes.  They looked good but were all gone before I was ready for desert.  :-(  That's okay, she also brought Cracker Jacks so I ate those.  I think all the kids had fun even if they complain about making them go to a patriotic program.  

The fireworks at the end were great!  Jo took some pictures on her phone but I was enjoying them too much to remember to take pictures.  Now today we're going to another party/cookout/picnic.  Maybe more photos later.

Red, White, & Blue Swap

Since my partner should have received her package by now I'll share photos of what I sent her.  I found some vintage paper banners at my favorite thrift shop.  I made a little collage with an old bingo card, postcard, label, & some other goodies.
Red, white, & blue washcloths:
And an American flag tag.

Decorating for the Fourth

We practiced strawberry cupcakes for the wedding last week.  I ended up calling these my "July Snowball" cupcakes & taking them to the office.  They were okay.  I would have liked them better if they were chocolate but Lauren likes strawberry.  I also decorated my little corner table for the upcoming holiday.  We're planning to go to the Singing Flag again this year!  Yay!!!

Our Fourth of July

Doesn't this look delicious?!?!  Glenn made dinner for us Thursday night.  He made a delicious lemon chicken recipe that he found on the food network, green beans, rice, and red white & blue berry shortcake for dessert.  Yummy!!!  If you go see the recipe on the food network website, Glenn's looked MUCH better.  I should have taken a picture of it but it didn't last very long.  

Oh, Thursday L called me at work, told me her friends were dying their hair purple, and asked if she could dye her hair, too.  I said, sure, as long as you're paying for it.  She wanted me to go with her to pick out the color.  By then she had decided on a more natural red color.  Her hair's so short that there was a lot left over so she did MY hair, too.  :-)  We were wondering what Glenn's hair would look like red... may try that on his vacation!  Here's what she looks like now.  Doesn't look too different in this photo, though.  

So, our 4th of July started with a houseful of teenage girls.  Lauren had some friends over and Glenn cooked breakfast for them.  He was going to make red/white/blue pancakes but decided to just serve the berries with them.

Our Sunday School class had an all-day cookout so we went for lunch.  There were LOTS of people there.  Our class is getting really big.  Lauren was there for a while before she went to the city with some friends.  She's going to post some photos on her blog later today when she gets off work.  The swimming pool was full of little kids.  I took a picture of the 'big kids' table.  They were playing some kind of secret card game.  (I think they were making up rules as they went along.)

Glenn and the 'really big kids' threw the football around for a while, making us all nervous.  They were on each side of the swimming pool throwing OVER all the little kids.  

That evening we went for a cookout at our friends' house.  E has a new game -- guess what it is?  And guess who played it?  We had a good time laughing at J & G trying the expert level & me trying the easy level.  I look like a real rocker here with my red streaked hair!  lol...

Have a safe and happy 4th of July!!!

Happy Independence Day!!!

First of all let me say, Blogger is acting funny today.  Things keep moving around on my page so I'm not sure how this will look when I finally publish it.  We went to the Singing Flag last night in Concord.  Here we are above waiting for it to begin.  We were hanging with  a pretty tough looking group:

Boy, were these kids patriotic!  Angie got to the park at 6 AM (that's IN THE MORNING!!!) to spread out our blankets.  So we had some really good seats.  The show started at 7:30 PM but we all got there around 6:30 and had a picnic, talked, and looked around to see who else was there that we knew.  We figured by 7:30 there were close to 2000 people there!  

It was a good show.  They did some patriotic music, some gospel, and sections on "American favorites" - cartoons, movies, Disney, etc.  Some were even sing alongs.   The girls were really getting into it.  Too bad I didn't take a picture of us singing "Old MacDonald" and quacking.  (Our section was the ducks.)

You can see the actual singing flag better in the photo below:

There were fireworks at the end.  And, of course, the kids jumped.

Hope everyone has a happy and safe 4th of July.  And tell all those Pipes' hello for us!

Back to Your Regularly Scheduled Holiday...

Yes, I'm still working on things for Christmas this afternoon, but I have photos that fit the season a little better.  :-)  

I have to work tomorrow but J is going to enjoy a craft day over at our friends' house.  They have Shrinky Dinks & duct tape as their supplies.  There's no telling what they'll come up with.  I wanna do Shrinky Dinks!!!