Hope everyone who celebrated had a happy 4th! Cory had the entire day off, so we did a lot of stuff around the house. Cory mowed the lawn right away in the morning before our kids and the neighbor girls were up and spreading things all over the lawn. The neighbors both left around lunchtime to go with their respective dads for the weekend, so it might be a rather quiet time around here over the next couple days.

Cory finally had a chance to fix Cole's bike. At one point last year, some older girls who hung out a little more when we had a different next door neighbor borrowed Cole's bike to ride somewhere (unfortunately I was inside when they asked to do that) and came back with a bike whose rear tire was basically stripped and training wheels that were uneven. Cole's ridden it a little since then, but it's been too wobbly for his taste, and today we finally picked up a new tire and training wheels. He and Accalia were riding their bikes all over. Cory also got Accalia's very first bike out and put the training wheels back on that so that Ella would have her own bike. It's the perfect size for Ella, but she isn't interested in trying to pedal. Instead, I push her back and forth on the sidewalk. She loves that, but it's getting harder on my back to do that. Cory also fixed the tricycle, which had a wheel that had fallen off. So, we've got quite a few working vehicles again!

A huge area of argument with our kids and the neighbor girls is that there are never enough swings on our swing set for all four to be on there at once. I had switched it a bit ago so there would be three swings and Ella's swing, but that still left one unable to swing. So, since Ella seems to have lost interest in being pushed on the swing and is starting to want to sit in a "big kids" swing and be pushed a little, we took down her swing and now have four regular swings. Hopefully that keeps everyone happy.

As is our tradition, we walked down to the river and sat with thousands of others to watch the almost 20 minute fireworks show. I think this is the first year that all three kids have simply sat and watched the fireworks. Usually they're busy running up and down the small hill near where we sit. We all enjoyed it, and all three kids were asleep within an hour of us returning home.

Cory works for a bit later on today delivering pizzas, and I'm not sure what else we'll do. We still have no van, and I'm not even sure how soon next week we'll get it back. It's an extremely frustrating situation, and we're definitely never going back to this mechanic. We really liked the work (and customer service) he did when he installed the hitch on our van, but this has just been so disappointing. We were supposed to get a loaner vehicle Thursday, but that never happened either. Sigh.

I should get ready for the day while everyone is still sleeping. Enjoy your weekend!