Josh and Becca Thrap and Family

We had a nice long holiday weekend. After celebrating Elena’s birthday on Tuesday, I spent Wednesday doing laundry and packing everyone for our trip to the east coast (east coast of Iowa that is). We left that afternoon and arrived at the Wheelers. Kate and I took the kids outside to play frisbee and we let Josh and Chris go to “cheap sushi night.” Thursday morning we packed up again and continued on to Muscatine. We dropped the kids off at my folks’ and they immediately began to run around with the new neighbor kids (a new family has just moved in next to my parents. The father of the family is someone that Josh and my sister went to school with–he and his wife now have three children very close to the ages of our younger three, in fact, their oldest daughter and our Elise have the same birthday and now claim to be twins!) while Josh and I kept our lunch date to meet Danaka, Becky & her husband Steve–it was Steve’s first time in Muscatine so naturally we had Peking. We spent the afternoon visiting with our friends (and Steve PROMISED to send me copies of the pictures that we took since I couldn’t find my camera which I had packed just for the occasion and of course found the moment they all left!) Friday (the 4th!), I woke up at 6 not feeling terribly well so I went back to sleep for a few more hours. I admit that even after getting up and going, I don’t really remember what we did until it was time to go to the parade. Elena and I rode on the trolley with the Wheelers and the Democrats (who had obtained the trolley’s services for the parade) and Josh took the older kids to watch the parade until the trolley passed by and they hopped onboard with the rest of us. After the parade, we had dinner with my folks, topped off with strawberry shortcake and ice cream in honor of Josh’s graduation and Elena’s birthday. Then it was time to head downtown for the fireworks. Typical Muscatine display I’d say. I got pretty good parking and Cameron and I opted to sit in the van while the others walked down to the riverfront. As it turns out, I had a better view than Josh ended up with. So I took a few pics. This shows my vantage point. And Cameron’s
After the fireworks we went back to Coralville and stayed with the Wheelers. Saturday morning we had a brunch (of sorts) with more friends Drew and wife Erin, and the boys watched the Nathan’s Famous 4th of July hot dog eating contest (yuk!!!) then Kate and I sent Josh and Chris on a guys’ night out to celebrate for Josh’s finishing classes and Chris’ birthday. They went to Ruby Tuesday’s and saw “Get Smart.” I crashed soon after they got back home, but then woke up again later to Josh watching “I Legend.” I couldn’t sleep through it once I was up even though I tried, so although I didn’t actually see much of it, I can tell you from what I heard that I didn’t like it. Sunday morning we packed up again and took our kids to “Wayne’s” or Dairy Mart for a little lunch and ice cream treat before continuing on to Wayland for a visit with my grandparents. Grandpa taught us the nut-cracking secrets of 90-year-old men, and Grandma made us some pink lemonade. We had a very nice visit and the kids were fairly well behaved. We stayed later than we had originally intended and so we had to rush off somewhat abruptly to get back to Coralville where Kate and her kids were waiting patiently for us to pick them up and bring them home with us for a few days this week!