Day 175: Happy 3rd, 5th, 4th

"Happy 4th" seems to be an acceptable greeting for Independence Day. Since we've already had a Happy 3rd and a Happy 5th in the last month - it seems reasonable enough.

Today has had two very different elements. The morning and the late evening have been taken up with preparing for the packing phase of our move that will begin with the arrival of the removal company in the morning. The house contains a mixture of our stuff and rented furniture and housewares, so we have been trying to bring some order by moving things around and doing some tidying. I won't pretend we've made a great success of the latter, but we've done plenty of the former. It's now as good as it's going to be - not good - but we've stopped.

The other element was a 4th of July party/barbecue/... with two homegroups from our church. The day had by far the worst weather of any in the last two weeks. Last Wednesday's storm included. So, there was barbecuing in the rain and indoor eating. I'm happy to say that the grilling was done on a real barbecue rather than the gas ranges that most people use for their deck-kitchens. We had a fantastic time. Here is E5N1 and our host passing the time of day (the 'Bumbo' he's sitting in was borrowed, but it seems like it might be time to get his out of its box again). We left before games and the chance of fireworks dragged us into staying late - sorry to poop the party, but happy to have some awake-time to get the house in order and for the girls to get to bed close to their normal time.