4th of July Weekend 2015

When your dog is scared of fireworks...and you live with a bunch of softies...you end up with this... 

Hubby left to get ice cream for everyone and came back with a cone in a cup for Zipper. Zipper, the dog who was sitting on my bed with Ginger Girl and me, shaking from all the big bad scary noises invading his space. 

Picture this: hubby walks in, Zipper only glances up like, "Oh, hi, you didn't make the bad noises stop." Zipper puts his face back in his girl's lap, waiting to be comforted from the attack on his senses. Suddenly Zipper picks his head back up, in the doggy version of a double take, and sees the upside cone with vanilla ice cream in a clear cup. You know you have a spoiled puppy when he sees that and instantly changes from hovering in fear to shaking and giving puppy whines out of excitement. He knew it was his, because that's how his ice cream appears in front of him after unfun visits to the vet. 

"Girl, get out my bowl!"

"I know that's
for me!"

"Someone help me here? The
cone is stuck around my mouth."

It took him a good 2 minutes to realize he could just close his mouth and the cone would break in half. He was so pathetic with a cone around the bottom half of his mouth, looking at us like he couldn't get out of it.

Ice cream mustache. 

That's the stuff. 

And just 'cause I know you are dying to know if Zipper survived the horrifying ordeal of firework noise--yes, he did. If burying himself in the corner of a littler box while everyone was preoccupied and couldn't hold him counts as surviving.

We couldn't miss the traditional 4th of July parade in our town. It's huge, fun to watch, and Blondie is in the marching band. 

The girl section.
Amazing Grace, Ginger Girl,
Little Blondie.

The old people section.
Dad2, hubby, me. 

There are no pictures of the boy section because there wasn't one. Boy Teenager had a concussion and had to stay away from loud noises and Big D had other plans.

Last year's parade had Little Blondie and Big D getting captured and put in the Shriner's jail (and a picture to see how much my hair has grown in 1 year, holy cow). There was also the year that they put me in that darn ol' jail. When you have a large family, you should apparently just expect to have someone placed in jail each year because there are just so many of you sitting there on the side of the street. Shriner jail. Not other jail.

Amazing Grace's turn.

Aw, no Amazing Grace.

She was oh so not pleased to have been chosen. She put up quite the impressive fight too. Those Shriners have no sympathy for pouty 18 year olds though.