Family, Fireworks and Fun

Over this last weekend I took a trip to see family and have some fun for the 4th of July, and it was a blast!

The fun started on Thursday in Council Bluffs with my fiance’s family playing volleyball and yard games before we headed to a family friend’s house to get the fireworks started.

While we were playing volleyball, my fiance took a spiked ball to the face and luckily, she wasn’t hurt too bad because I couldn’t help but laugh! She was a good sport and kept playing and didn’t have much harsh feelings towards me for laughing so it was all in good fun. We may have lost both games, but we all still had a ton of fun playing together!

I didn’t get a chance to buy my own fireworks Thursday night, so I was happy that her dad let me light his fireworks since he mostly likes to just watch anymore. Plenty of artillery shell fireworks to go around so it was a great time!

I found some great Patriotic overalls to wear for the festivities on Thursday, and I got countless compliments on them throughout the day! They will now be a staple of my 4th of July wardrobe in the years to come!

Then on Friday, my parents picked us up at her family’s house in Council Bluffs to start our caravan to Chicago for the family reunion.

We decided it would be fun to have most everyone together in an RV for our ride to Chicago. While we were on our way, I had a lot of fun playing card games like pitch and speed with my cousins and aunts nearly the whole trip! It made the time go so much faster, which was great because that drive to Chicago is a long one!

The only problem we had in the RV was that the A/C didn’t work except for in the cab, so we tried our hardest to make the A/C go round for everyone.

We met up with the rest of the family at the reunion at my dad’s uncle’s house just outside of Chicago Friday night. We caught up for a while before heading to another family member’s house to sleep.

My fiance and I along with my sister and her fiance stayed at a distant cousin’s house Friday and Saturday night and we were happy to see they had a game room with skee ball, a pool table and plenty of Chicago sports memorabilia. So, we stayed up late and had a good heart-to-heart talk together and played games!

Then on Saturday, my dad’s uncle provided a bounce house, a blow-up water slide, a petting zoo, and pony rides for all the kids and margarita dispensers for all the adults! He also hired a catering company with tacos and guacamole to go along with the margaritas, and needless to say, we all had a great time!

At one point on Saturday, my grandma and her brother, the owner of the house, decided they would go down the water slide together. My grandma took a tumble at the end of the slide, but she was quick to get back up and said she wasn’t hurt. I was blown away at how spry and full of energy they are even with their age! I can only hope to be that energetic and resilient when I reach that point of my life!

I ended up getting involved in a spur-of-the-moment touch football game Saturday night before the fireworks show started, and I got my exercise for the next three months from that game!

It was a great trip and I was so happy to see everyone to catch up and have fun together! I’m already looking forward to the next family reunion for the other side of my family next year!

Thanks for reading! Much love,

Brady \m/ (>.<) \m/