Happy 4th and finally July Events

Happy 4th of July

What I decided to do on the blog is three different posts to get up to date, so this one is the current one, the next one covers June and the 3rd one covers May. So if you read this, make sure you check out the next couple of posts also. I also edited a couple of posts from May and April if you want to see some more pictures.

July has been really warm so far. It has been hard to keep cool and keep the yard watered, but we are surviving. It is good though because the garden is growing fast with the hot weather. So far we have had a fun filled July with lots going on. On the 3rd of July, Pedro Gonzales, the high school soccer coach, organizes a 3x3 soccer tournament. We have had a Finlinson family team the past 2 years and did again this year. We don't quite have enough for a team so we invited Jordan and Trevor Johnson to play with us. They played 7 games in all and had a lot of fun although they were really tired afterwards (and during!) It was fun to watch them play together. Abby and Gichin were also here to cheer them on.

That night Abby, Gichin, Brooke, and Dani spent the night at Wendy's as is tradition, then in the morning she fixed them breakfast and Marcus, Cory, TJ, Shauna, Kait and I went in and ate also before the parade in Delta. It is Delta's centennial and so the parade was extra good, a lot longer and some very nice entries. Also in connection with the centennial, Delta City attempted to break the guineas world record for the longest bunny hop (you know we are Delta Rabbits) with the most people (over 3, 000 were participating). Part of the requirement was everyone had to wear bunny ears while doing it, and we had to do it for 5 minutes. Here we are waiting for it to start. It was a little confusing and we are not sure if we broke the record or not, but it was fun trying.
We enjoyed watching the parade under the shade of the bank trees. We did notice that there was not as much candy thrown out, and Brooke and Dani were not to aggressive at chasing it down, but we still feel like we got plenty. I thought it was great fun to play with Kait at the parade. She wasn't too sure about the guns and fire engines, but was pretty caught up in all the excitement and liked crawling around on the pavement. She is so cute in her tie dye onsie.

Cory was in the parade on the student council float. He is the National Honor Society vice president. He is the one standing up if you can't tell.
After the parade we went home and got the swim tank all filled up. The girls all went swimming and had a great time. Kait was happy swimming as long as only her toes got in the water. Anymore than that and she got a little nervous.
We just barely took out some of the old sand/dirt from the sandbox and replaced it with new, better sand. Brooke, Dani and Abby made a fancy sand castle with our new sandbox toys.
We had lots of cousins come for our 4th of July picnic. Jerry, Jan and Do's families came and we were excited that Grandma and Grandpa Fin ventured out. Grandma and Grandpa Burnham and Wendy also were here. It was a nice picnic under our trees on the big lawn.
Later on that evening we had our firework show with TJ being in charge. He gave us a great show although Kait either was worried about her Pop being out by all that noise and sparkles or just didn't like the noise. She finally seemed to calm down as long as there weren't any screamers.
Cory left after the fireworks with Abby and Gichin and went to Idaho with them for the weekend. That left just Marcus and the girls home, so on Thursday night they decided to sleep on the tramp. Sammy (the cat) enjoyed sleeping with them also.
On Friday night Brooke finally had a successful night games party. She has tried several times and just can't seem to find a night when people can come, so usually it ends up only being a party with a couple of girls, but this one turned out great with 10 girls in all between Brooke and Dani and their friends. I was a little more involved this time and they had fun playing all the traditional games, volleyball, badminton, crows and cranes, steal the bacon, and dare base. We didn't attempt capture the flag because it seems to be kind of a contentious game with all those girls. But we did have 7 layer dip, chocolate chip cookies, red licorice, and punch. Even Brooke admitted it turned out good.
Brooke and Dani have been having so much fun so far this summer just hanging out, swimming and being silly. I snapped this picture of them just lounging in the swings and visiting and being silly. What fun sisters and friends they are.