The Kelsey's

So what do you do on a holiday where the big event isn’t until after dark? Does the rest of the day feel like any other day? It may have seemed that way in the morning.

But soon after lunch time, we did something a little different. Laura suggested we stop laying around the house and go outside and play.

“It’s the 4th of July and it’s beautiful outside..!”

So we decided to do ‘some activity’ outside. Joshua grabbed his glove and mine, and a couple of baseballs. Hannah grabbed her iPod. Caleb grumbled a bit about having to put on socks and shoes instead of just flip flops. But I demanded if we were going to do some running around, you would need more than those.

So we were going to go in the back yard and play catch. After all, the yard still looked like it had been mowed. (That reminds me, I need to do something about the fact that I don’t own a working lawn mower – this fact will become noticeable to the whole neighborhood very soon.)

I thought we could walk over to the near by high school and run around the track. But instead we settled for walking a few blocks to the park and throwing the ball around. We got there and Joshua and I started playing catch. Hannah walked over to the swings and Caleb decided that doing that was better than watching.

It was only about five minutes when Caleb came running back over to us. I thought he had forgotten to go to the bathroom before leaving – he looked a little agitated. When he got over to me I asked him what was wrong. In an agitated voice he said, “Dad, there’s bees out here!”

I looked around and we were in a vast field of clover with the puffy white flowers poking out everywhere. I bent over and looked down.

“You’re right! Why this right here would be called a bumble bee.” I took a few steps and said, “And here are two more.”

This wasn’t helping.

“Caleb, you’ve walked all the way across this field twice now and they didn’t even notice you. Besides, this is why I told you to wear shoes instead of flip flops, you’re just fine.”

No consolation. By this time Hannah is on her way over because it’s looking like there’s a conversation that she’s missing out on.

We walked over to the sidewalk and considered just going home. But instead we decided to go on over to the track. Hannah wasn’t interested, so she took the balls and gloves back to the house. Only after we got home did we find out that she decided to take the long way home and even stopped off at the Haakenson’s to visit for a while. Freedom from the supervision of parents is becoming a “thing” with her.

So we walked over and ran up and down the bleachers of the soccer field. I was sure there was a track around somewhere. So we walked all the way around the back of the school and found it on the far side.

We ran one lap. This was enough to leave some of us gasping for breath! OK, Caleb was ready to go – but the rest of us were through. I did manage to jump one hurdle that was on the side. But that took it all out of me.

But before we left, I lined the boys up in one end zone and we pretended to run back a kick off. We did the 100 yard “dash(?)” for what would be considered a touchdown. However, a touchdown isn’t a touchdown when there is no defense. But there were all these metal stakes in the ground, but I don’t think they counted.

After a leisurely stroll home, it wasn’t long until dinner. Not a bad way to mess around while waiting for the big 4th of July feast that was being prepared for us.

Usually on the night of the 4th, we go to a local Steak -N- Shake and order milk shakes for all and sit on a hill and watch 3-4 fireworks displays. We discovered this worked better for our toddlers because they were far away enough from the booms. And the Florissant display was close enough that we could still enjoy some booms during the finale. Plus no crowd and we could just wander back home as soon as it was over.

But this year the 4th fell on a Friday night. We don’t buy anything from sundown on Friday until sundown on Saturday to honor the Sabbath day. So this year we just stayed home. We were pretty pooped from running around in the afternoon anyway.

It’s amazing how the prosperity of this country has allowed us to become so very sedentary! I’m not complaining! Just observing.

I think things will be changing around here soon… …Laura bought a scale this week.