Adventures with four girls: Our quintessential, very Americana 4th of July!

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Our quintessential, very Americana 4th of July!

We managed to make it back to the U.S. on the long flights and four young kids without too much drama. The flight was a lot of work but except for Jane vomiting into Jake's hands and all over her seat and clothes, it wasn't too bad.

We connected through Chicago and made it to Arkansas on June 30th. Starting on the 2nd of July, we had lots of fun activities planned with all the cousins and extended family on my dad's side of the family. It was really a treat to see my immediate family, of course, as well as cousins and cousins of cousins (who are like my cousins!) from coast to coast in the U.S. as well as Tokyo. Even though my parents only live an hour outside of Little Rock, we decided to rent a cute little historic cottage for a few days to be closer to the action. Below see the whole clan.

Our family on my dad's side (plus the little neighbor boy in the front
in red who obviously wants to be adopted by our family!)

We kicked the weekend off with an "our generation" only dinner (all the grandparents stayed home and kept the little ones). We had an excellent dinner at the Capitol Grille (thanks, John!) and then continued an old tradition of heading to the White Water Tavern which is a local haunt with live music. The live music selection was a little....odd.... that night (I can't remember his name but he looked like Santa Claus and wore snowman pajamas). Jake and I spent the night at the Capital Hotel in Little Rock which is truly a lovely, old restored hotel in downtown Little Rock.

The next day (3rd) consisted of golf for some and a pool party at the golf course for all. Given that the temperatures here this summer are Abu-Dhabi-hot, swimming is a welcome diversion.

The highlight of the weekend was getting to participate in the 35th Annual never-on-time Hillcrest neighborhood 4th of July parade. We all wore our patriotic best and marched behind the firetrucks in attendance. The parade ends at Pulaski Height Elementary for refreshments and a spirited reading of the Declaration of Independence (complete with boo-ing anytime the British were mentioned).

The day wrapped up with barbecue, great company, a slip-n-slide and just generally a fun evening. My girls are getting to know their cousins a little better and we get to anticipate future additions as our number of the next generation will grow from a current count of 8 up to 10 next year (not provided by us, of course!!). Additionally we celebrated eight (yes, eight) family member birthdays that fall in the months of July and August. And, yes, we did indeed sing happy birthday eight times (tried a different key for variety for the last couple of renditions). Anna (the 3rd youngest grand-baby in the group) had us stitches. The Sherman's older house has a little balcony on the stair landing overlooking the living room. Anna decided it was surely a stage and that surely all 25 or so people would want to hear her sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and the ABC song a few times. She's our real ham and performer. She also got other cousins, Laura and Helen to perform as well. It was so very special to see this little ones perform for us!

Although that event was the last for some of the group, the rest of us wrapped up the weekend with a tour of my brother and sister-in-law's major-remodel-in-process house in historic Little Rock and another swim at Uncle Bob and Aunt Mary Ann's. A few of us also went to the new Heifer Project visitor's center and enjoyed the downtown RiverMarket and a walk across the old Junction Bridge with a great view of downtown.

Overall an amazing weekend with good memories created and fun times with some great family members. Plus all this fun activity certainly helped us get over our jet lag faster. At the end of the week, we were a bit sad to put Jake back on the plane to Abu Dhabi (back to work time!) but certainly enjoyed a fun 4th with him.