July 4 Weekend

I can't remember exactly which day most of these things happened, so they are all getting lumped into the 4th of July/Dan's Birthday category.

We went boating with some friends. Dan did a great job surfing.

Anda did a great job being cute.

I did a great job standing up...

but found that I preferred falling on my face.

And this kid (son of our friends' friend) did a great job being Anda's new best friend, ensuring a fun day for everyone.

Precious.

We also had fireworks, beginning with the sparklers.

And ending with some legal-this-year-only-because-of-all-the-rain aerial and fountain fireworks that our friends got.

On the fourth, Dan and I ran the 10k then met my sisters and Anda at the parade. Which was loud.

Anda hates the Emperor as much as anyone, but that's actually just her new "smile" face, as illustrated again below.

The best part of the Fourth of July holiday is that we get to party constantly because it's also Dan's birthday. Home made ice cream, white cake, and peanut butter frosting to go with your boating, 10ks, fireworks, and parades. Happy birthday, Danno.

The Hubris of Camping

Last weekend, we went up the canyon with some friends to take Anda on her first camping trip. She had been feeling under the weather, but seemed okay with Tylenol in her, so we forged ahead. We are excellent campers. We can handle anything. Let me just insert this explanation of the word "hubris" here.

Dan set up the tent while Anda and I took some pictures.

Nate and Becca brought their two dogs, and the three kids got along famously.

Dan and Nate went to get some wood and brought back a forest. We had quite the fire, which produced delicious hot dogs and s'mores.

And thus ended the fun part. Once it got dark, the dogs kept running out of sight and making Nate and Becca nervous, so we all went to bed. Note that I did not say "we all went to sleep." I don't know how things were in the other tent, but Anda would not let anyone sleep until she was lying on top of me, securely held in my arms. If I tried to move her, she screamed. If I held her in the only way that kept her quiet, my arms froze. The one time I managed to get us both comfortably and quietly situated, an anti-muffler-with-the-brights-on convention immediately drove right past our site and kicked, I'm just estimating here, a billion pounds of dust into the air. When Dan woke up to me crying out of frustration, discomfort, and lack of sleep at 3:00 am, he agreed that it was time to give up. He drove Anda and me home, dropped us off, drove the 30 minutes back to the site to get another 2 hours of sleep, then packed everything up himself. I did feel bad for him, but at the moment, I felt worse for Anda and me. Eventually we all took long naps and felt a little better, and a little wiser, too.

Next time, we will make sure to have a practice run in the backyard, a clean bill of health for all parties, and a quiet, secluded camp site. Otherwise, I'm not doing it.

So, if you ever want to dive in to camping with a 2 year old, call me. I will talk you down.