Happy 4th!

July 4th -- It's little Miss Innocent!

Charlotte conquered the ottoman over the weekend!

A 4th of July outfit! So cute!

Playin' with Mom on the 4th!

The Davis Family @ the parade!

Charlotte loved the flags!!

It's a great spot to see the parade!

Petey got a lot of attention on our way to the parade.

Wave that flag Munchkin!!

Just before we left for the parade!

Mandy, Charlotte & her beads!

A little girl and her big puppy!

Getting ready to head home.

It was a beautiful weekend for a holiday! A bit warm on Saturday, but a great day for a parade. I drove down to Ankeny on Friday night and stayed at the Hotel Barb. Barbie was on vacation in Wisconsin (someplace), so I took advantage of her Hotel!!

Got up Saturday morning, got ready and headed to Urbandale and Jim & Mandy's place. Of course the first thing I did was drive by their house at least 2 times! Their street is one that is used for staging for the Urbandale parade. It's a pretty neat parade. Spent some time with the family while different ones were getting ready. Got acquainted with my granddaughter again. She's such a cutie! I love her to death!!

We walked a few blocks to where Jim & Mandy usually hang out for parades. On the way I took a tumble! Actually I fell down! Mandy says I hit a bad spot in the sidewalk and it was all downhill from there. I had my camera in my left hand and it hit my face when I went down. I had a wonderful bruise on my face for a couple of days!! Banged up my left side a little, but it didn't stop us from getting to where we wanted to go! Mandy gave me a hand up (thanks so much for that, otherwise I'd still probably be laying there). Now that would have been an attraction!!

We found a spot and camped out. Jim got hung-up a couple times on the way. Everybody wanted to pet or touch Petey. He was quite the attraction! One of the floats on their street was for a doggie place (technical term) and they gave us a yell and threw a milkbone to us for Petey. It even had a bow on it!! That was cool. Jim, Mandy & Charlotte shared a blanket, and I got to sit in a chair that Jim had brought for me. It was a great place to watch a parade! But it was really, really, really hot!! Lots of candy thrown our way (we had two young boys near us and they had a ball grabbing as much as they could for their plastic bags!). Charlotte got some beads and all of us got water from different people. We made sure Petey had plenty of that. We had brought soda for the adults and water and juice for Charlotte. Mandy finally couldn't stand the heat any longer and moved herself and Charlotte under a tree behind us. The view wasn't as good but it was a bit cooler. Finally Jim, Petey and I joined her. Lots of nice people around to talk to. One lady came over and gave Petey some more water. He was looking pretty beat. He finally just laid down on the cool earth and rested. Talked Jim into getting a car to bring me and the dog home. He brought mine back and it doesn't have a child car seat so Mandy and Charlotte walked home. The air helped Petey a little bit. We couldn't even get him up on his feet, so Mandy carried him partway to the car. I pushed Charlotte in the stroller and Jim came and got Petey. He did walk to the car from there but he looked pretty bad!! Once we got back to their house the air really helped him! He's fine.

Jim made pizza for lunch and we basically just vegged out the majority of the afternoon. We went to Goodwill and left a load of things there and then onto Valley West Mall. Did a little shopping (got Charlotte some new jammies and a new top) and played in the playland for a bit. Actually I think we stopped there so Grandma Joy could rest. Decided to go out for supper and went to a BBQ place. Good food, great company but a little strange. We sat on the bar side of the place and they had a couple of ladies playing and singing music. From what we could figure out it was a lot of people that got together for a class reunion. There were a couple of floats in the parade with reunions on them. The ladies even played a special song for Charlotte. She was so good!!

Watched a couple of movies and then headed home. Jim called me on the way and said if I hurried I could probably catch the end of the NASCAR race. I had it on the radio and did get to see the last 3 laps. Go Kevin!! Did some laundry and picking up that Barb asked me to do and went to bed.

Slept in on Sunday morning. I was tired!! Couldn't figure out why my left shoulder was sore and then remembered the fall. I finished my laundry, folded, packed everything up and left for Jim & Mandy's around 11:00 a.m. Charlotte was being a bear when I got there, but took a short nap and was just fine. It was rainy and gloomy all day. The kids had planned to go to the pool for a couple of hours but the weather kinda put a stop to that. Jim, Charlotte and I took a nap while Mandy slaved in the kitchen. She made a fantastic dinner for us. Vegetable pockets, grilled chicken, baked beans (Mandy's beans are great) and cheesecake with fresh strawberries for desert!! It was great! I had a great time with my granddaughter. I fussed about picking her up and Mandy told me if I didn't try I'd never know how she would react. She reacted fine. We had a great time.

I drove home in the rain. Nothing exciting, just lots and lots of rain. Sometimes fairly hard but I got home safe. Drug my bags upstairs, turned on the air, and basically lazed the rest of the evening away. Monday was a holiday for me, so I did some scrapbooking, went and got groceries (with a little help from a friend) and did some more scrapbooking. I called a friend to help drag my stuff upstairs. Caught him on his lunch hour so picked him up and put him to work. Grabbed him something to eat from McDonald's and got all my stuff taken care of. He even brought up all the extra laundry I had taken with me.

I've been keeping busy with the scrapping. The Shoppe opens September 1 so I have a few things I need to complete. I have about 10 books ready to go. Let's just hope this goes over well. I'll be disappointed if I don't sell some of my stuff. I'm locked into a contract for 6 months so . . . if nothing goes well, will pay my monthly rent and give it up. But I do think there will be some people interested for Christmas gifts. Hope so anyway!

It's raining here again today. Gave up shutting down the air. It gets just too stuffy in here without the air on. Electric bill will tell the tale of that adventure!

Won't be long and school will start again. Where did the summer go? Looking forward to a couple more campfires at my sister's and maybe a couple out-of-town trips with a friend. Time will tell.

You'all take care!