It's been a busy July 4 weekend. On Friday (which I had off work), I spent most of the day working on a new sandbox for the kids. I got a wild hair that they needed a bigger one a while ago so I got some wood and screws and have been getting it built. Alex and Missy met a neighborhood kid this week, who has been here to play every single day since then...and it's big enough for them all to play in it. Big improvement. Beth and I and the kids all went out geocaching again in the afternoon, up around Syracuse, and then later on had a wild hair and drove back up that way to eat dinner at Pete's, which we all agreed was not nearly as good as it should be. We got some sparklers and took the kids to the fireworks show in the evening, where Alex made fast friends with the family parked next to us in the middle school lot, who were all seated in the bed of their truck. He wanted to sit in the truck too. They had a couple of little kids so they said sure, come on up with us. Missy wanted to come too. He jabbered more or less the whole time the show was going on, crawling back down and over to us a few times to get his blanket, or his stuffed animal (which he introduced to the people with a big flourish..."everybody, meet...Pacer!), or just to check on us "Is everything OK here?". We took them to Pike Lake beach on Saturday and out for ice cream later. Sunday the only big thing was getting the sand to fill the completed sandbox, which was a bear to get pounded into the ground. And 15 bags of sand is heeeeavy. We need more, too.