Waffles, Walking, and Water

Natalie was invited to her friend Anna's house at 8am this morning for strawberry waffles. You see, we had some extra red velvet waffles one morning a couple of weeks ago, and I sent a couple of waffles to their house with Natalie. They loved them. Now they were sharing with Natalie. She said she ended up having chocolate waffles. What a lucky girl!

I had the day off, so I made some waffles for the rest of the family. Alex chose pound cake waffles because he said they "taste better after they've been left out." That's because Alex usually doesn't eat breakfast with the rest of the family. Patrick woke him up around 11am this morning or he would have slept longer. The waffles had been out for a good two hours by then. He was lucky to get his one waffle. Anthony ate two of them.

Every Fourth of July, our neighborhood has a little parade. They also invite at least one fire truck along to lead the parade. Today they had two. Patrick, Eric, and I didn't actually get there until the parade was over. Eric complained the whole way about how long the walk was. We only walked for about 10-15 minutes!

Natalie went with Anna and her family. During the parade, she got to carry the banner we won at last weekend's championship swim meet. Our girls aged 9-10 and girls aged 11-12 won their divisions, so we got banners. Natalie carried the 9-10 girls' banner along with the official tigershark "mascot". That is a stuffed shark toy with stripes drawn on it and mounted on a long black stick. Anna's mom, Alicia, was kind enough to take a picture for me of Natalie carrying the banner. Natalie was very happy to wear her medals again to show off.

After the parade, the kids could check out the fire trucks and get treats. Natalie was busy eating a ring pop (candy) while Eric went for the popsicles. By the time he decided he wanted a ring pop also, they were gone, so he had a second popsicle. There was a woman there representing a local candidate for office. She gave Eric the flag and "USA" necklace.

Anna's dad, Al, made a comment about how in the three years he has known us, Eric has never talked to him. Patrick and I told him to ask Eric what his favorite dinosaur was. Eric answered, "T. Rex." That opened the flood gates. A couple of minutes later, Al asked us how to make Eric stop talking. ;)

About mid-afternoon, we went to Lifetime Fitness to go to the pool and we took Anna along. The Fourth of July isn't the same without some pool time. The weather was actually a little drier today, almost cool when we were wet in the pool. Eric got plenty of exercise at the pool. He doesn't complain about swimming for exercise like he does walking. Anthony was also there with us and he played with Eric for most of the time. Alex stayed home the whole day playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 on PS3. I guess it was a double points day on the Playstation Network. He did manage to do some cleaning for us and he said he also went out for a short run.

We came home and Patrick grilled steaks for dinner. Yum! The rest of the family is currently watching the movie Jumanji (with Robin Williams) while I'm writing this post. Patrick bought some poppers at Costco, so they might play with those outside later. The kids are jaded from seeing nightly fireworks when we were at Disney, so they're not interested in going somewhere tonight to watch fireworks. In the past, Patrick has taken them nearby to watch the fireworks over Fiesta Texas. It's just as well, with the day's activities, most of us will sleep well tonight.