fireflies and 4th of July

I never thought we could possibly cram one more living being in our mini-van, but B. insisted we bring the puppy, Remington (Remie) with us on our trip to South Dakota. Now I may say "puppy", but it's misnomer. He's about 7 months old, but in reality he is 60 pounds or more of very large dog. But he was very well-behaved on the long 9 hour drive.

Though the fourth of July was our 10th anniversary, we didn't really celebrate it. That will be for later. I'm still in the planning stage. However B. did get me flowers and a card and Stars picked out a decadent chocolate cake for us. And we did have 60 people show up for our anniversary, with fireworks (granted, most of the extended family didn't know it was our anniversary. They just showed up for the annual family beer-drinking fest).

I was delighted to see fireflies in the evenings, which always reminds me of summers on the farm in New York.

On Sunday we went boating on the Missouri River, and Blaze went tubing for the first time. She absolutely loved it! Here she is with her Uncle Rod and Aunt Josie.

Here is Stars, driving my van back from the river with B. looking slightly concerned in the passenger seat. I followed behind in Rod and Josie's car, and I didn't see her go off the road once (grin). Actually I have been letting her drive quite a bit around our subdivision. But this was her first time on a real road.

Blaze and Dreamer had a lot of fun catching toads and frogs.

My four girls in red, white and blue, taking inventory of the toad collection on Grandma's porch.