Things are great here. We had a really great weekend with Sam & Tammy. We got to their house Wednesday evening and enjoyed a delicious pork chop dinner. What a great cook Tammy is turning out to be! I'm going to take James up on his $5 bet next time, Tam! Ha!
We played games that night, just Sam & Tammy and I, I think. Rummy 5,000, of course. That's our game. :-) I know I didn't go to bed until at least 1:00 each night we were there. Don't wanna miss out on any fun or fellowship, you know!
On Thursday we dropped Hershey off at the groomers, then headed to Odessa to get the boys groomed, too. :-) Thanks, Stacey! They all look soooooo much better. We were able to go to lunch with Stacey and Brianna, so that was nice, too. And I picked up a few things at Stacey's store. :-)
After that we headed over to Midland to pay a visit to Mardel. :-) James enjoyed talking with his old boss and some of the guys--and they pretty much left their work to just hang out for a while! They always act so excited to see him. We were able to pick up some school books at 90% off. That always makes me happy. :-)
We enjoyed a good church service that night and Brother Sam preached a good message, as always. He is ALWAYS a blessing to me. You already know who we saw after church that night ("May I sub-respond before you finish... Do you?!" HA! -- I looked up some of the Sonic commercials we've been missing since we don't have a TV and watched them on YouTube tonight. Love that one the best!)
We played games again that night, I Buy first and then Rummy after James called it quits.
Friday was the big day! Sam & Tam and James left early to start setting up the Sno-Cone booth at the park. The plan was for me to let the kids sleep in, then we'd all head down there whenever they woke up. They were all up and excited about the holiday before the others even left the house, so we weren't far behind them. The first festivities of the day were the turtle races. It was actually pretty fun! I think they had 270+ turtles this year. A lot of the people paint their turtles before the race.
I thought this guy was pretty fun...
There was also a parade. A kiddy parade, that is! All the kids in town decorate their bikes or wagons and dress up in red, white and blue and march in the parade and throw candy. I think the covered wagon won the "Most Patriotic" prize. (You can see Katie and Joe scooping candy off the road in the bottom left of the picture... right next to the back of Sonic Guy's head! Ha!)
Brother Sam was one of the judges. (He's a pretty important guy in Andrews, you know! Really--he's wormed his way into the hearts of just about everybody in town!!!) I had to take a picture of him. Doesn't he look official?!
And here are James and Tammy getting some ice ready... Cool tent, hu?!
And here's a picture of the sign we worked on for, like, 3 hours the night before! Ha! Pitiful that such a thing could take so long, isn't it?! I was pretty happy with it until I showed up at the sale and noticed the big, black $1's scribbled on it... but let's not talk about it! Ha! And just for all of you people who are bound to ask (!), Tigers Blood is a red syrup that is actually cherry and coconut flavors mixed together. I had no idea that's what it was but it is sooooo good--and I don't like coconut. One of the top sellers, for sure. And PICKLE. You just buy a big jar of dill pickles and pour the pickle juice over the ice. Is that nasty, or what?! But it's a big thing down there and you wouldn't believe the number of Pickle Sno-Cones that we sold! GROSS.
We sort of took shifts working the booth and entertaining the kids. Walking them around, then bringing them back and giving them a Sno-Cone. :-) Uncle Jerry really did most of the entertaining. Took 'em to the booths and bought them brownies and toys; a cap rifle with a scope for Joe (he has this thing for guns with SCOPES right now), a noisy little gun for Sam, and some disappearing ink for Katie. Still, by about noon the kids were wearing out, so Aunt Sue & Uncle Jerry took them back to their house. I went and picked up Hershey Dog and followed them there. The kids spent the afternoon watching Wanted: Dead or Alive while I napped on the couch. :-) Hershey and Joey were ready for a nap before too long, too...
The rest of the crowed showed up at about 4:00. James crashed on the couch and Uncle Jerry took the kids for rides on the motorcycle while Sam did all of the grilling.
It kind of concerns you to have such a guy cooking your food, but it appeared to be our only option since Uncle Jerry was on the bike and James was asleep! Ha!
I took this picture just because I thought it looked so great with the wind making Sam's shirt billow like that... :-)
Aunt Sue and Stacey and Bri went to a wedding, so James kept an eye on the kids while Tammy and I took on Sam and Uncle Jerry at 8 Ball. You'll never believe this, but WE WON!!! I think the guys won the first game, then Tammy and I squeezed the next game out. That meant we were tied and had to play a third... and we won! We played a fourth (Brother Sam was hoping to catch us again so we'd have to play yet another tie-breaker) but we pulled that one out, too, and ended the match. ~sigh~ What a great night!!! We're a pretty good team, hu, Tam?!
We headed back to the Kaufman house and put the kids to bed. Isn't it sad to not have any fireworks on the 4th of July?! The ban was being enforced heavily in Andrews County ($1,000 fine for even POSSESSING fireworks--I think that's what I heard!) because of the drought. Sad, sad, sad. So we turned the TV on and watched the show from Boston. Sam & Tammy even sat on the floor and pretended they were laying on the grass at the park, in person! Ha!
We played some more I Buy, lost James to the bed, then hit Rummy 5,000 again. What a great weekend! In the morning we loaded up and went to Sue's store before heading out of town. I got a couple things from there, too. :-) Most notably, a new purse. I LOVE my old purse--the one I bought two years ago and had stolen at the Assembly and went and bought the very same one afterwards for $20 again. But I've been increasingly frustrated at not having my camera and a few other things with me when I really needed them and that purse just wasn't going to work. I needed something bigger. Explain this to me: How can you have a small purse, buy a bigger purse, take what was in the small purse and put it into the bigger purse, and find that the bigger purse is FULL?! I don't get it. In any case, there is room for my camera, so even though this purse is much more my Mom than it is me (it's a girly quilted thing), I'm LOVING the functionality of it. Boy, if that's not the way to end a blog, I don't know what is. Exciting purse talk. ;-)G'night all! I'll try to post again soon and tell you all the things I ran out of steam on tonight!
~Rebekah~
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