Life: Idiotropic

Today we attended our third 4th celebration that wasn't celebrated on the 4th.

Pretty much the same as every year... there were rides and food, music and bird shows, informational booths highlighting organizations here, photo ops, bingo, and games.

The girls took off with Kirk right away and did all the rides while my mom and I walked around talking to people. There was one of those insanely fast rides that goes around in a circle with loud music and flashing lights over a hilly floor. The little girls loved it - even Elise. Tiara and I both got slightly nauseas.

So, our day in a nutshell:

• Tiara spent her day alternating between friends and me. Wanting to be with friends, but not wanting to be a third wheel between friend with boyfriend. She did go on that really spinny ride once with a really cute high school boy at insistence of a friend of mine. Not worried. Tiara's so shy with boys, she won't even talk to them. I don't mind if she hangs out with us though. I'm starting to miss her. She spends so much time either with friends or talking with friends that especially with her demanding sisters, we don't get much time just for us.

• Arianna ran all over playing with friends and riding rides. Although this is an open event, it's held at a base and we know the majority of the people there, so it almost feels like a private party and very safe. She had some freedom to run and liked that. The boy with her is David - a boy who was in her school class and lives just behind us. They are so much alike that they've spent the last year either completely in love or absolutely NOT liking each other one bit.

• Luci was eating her dinner with the rest of us sitting on a picnic bench talking to friends when one asked what happened to her nose that was now swollen and purple from yesterday's fall. "It's broken," she said. So, long story short, I saved myself a trip to the clinic by taking her to our regular doctor who happened to be volunteering for the event at the med tent. Yep, broken. And she has a case of ringworm. Poor kid. But a broken nose hasn't slowed her down one bit. I had to stop her from jumping on the wet bouncy castle with ten other rowdy kids. She didn't like that. At least the spinny ride was relatively safe and she got to go rock shopping with her dad and get a really pretty rose quartz egg. Luci also memorized the location of the med tent and ran there several times to get an ice and water filled latex glove to ice her nose. She didn't really care about the glove, but was pretty happy just sitting with Dr. Huhn. She calls him Dr. Toad (his name is Todd) and I think she kind of has a crush on him.
  

• Elise thinks she's Tiara or thinks she should have the same freedoms. She saw a friend from school and took off running. Was across the field in a split second with me running awkwardly after her. Silly thing. But she had a great time playing too.

• It showered tremendously at one point soaking everyone and forcing all the crowds under one tiny tent where we screamed conversations over the music, but cleared in time for the fireworks display that was so so almost average, but kinda below - a display that was a nice gesture, but ended without pizazz - not one stanza of patriotic music, not one march. So when it was over the entire crowd assembled there in the dark sat, quietly, for about 40 seconds whispering "is it over?" before gathering up their chairs and leaving.