Fourth of July

I recently kept my first grandson, Matthew, for the week while my daughter attended a conference in California. He is three and a half and very cute. He is very quiet and can entertain himself for hours if needed but from the picture you can see that his young aunts and uncles love to entertain him too.

Hannah and Matthew rolled their tongues for this picture. Can you do that? You'd be surprised how many people can't roll their tongue.

Today our family will celebrate Michael's 18th birthday. His birthday was Friday but with all the softball games and practices, math classes, and life at the newspaper, we couldn't figure out a sooner time. He has requested chocolate cake with white frosting and ice cream with tracks of some kind. We bought bunny tracks ice cream when we shopped at Wal-Mart this morning. We also had to finish birthday shopping for him while we were there. The celebration will start with eating out at "The Great Wall" Chinese buffet in Anderson. Then we will return home to eat cake and ice cream and open presents. I guess tonight there won't be the age old problem at the Cooper household of whether we will do dishes before or after presents as there won't be any dishes. Yeah! After the party we plan to go to New Castle for the fireworks show. We usually go and eat fried chicken and play on the playground while we wait for the entertainment. Today it is supposed to rain from 2-8 p.m. so it will be good we planned on Michael's party during that time. We may still pick up some KFC for a snack before the spectacular; you know Chinese food doesn't stick to your ribs for long.

I talked to Carrie (daughter-in-law who is pregnant with twins at 25 weeks) today and she had the baby monitor on for an hour and had to be really still. The doctors have changed from every six hours to every twelve hours for her to be on the monitor so that is better for her. Yesterday the doctor had talked about letting her go home and just come back every other day to be monitored but she said she wouldn't be coming home by tomorrow. Kim and Emily and I hope to visit Carrie Thursday evening for a little while.

I am missing my friend Karyn so much that I feel as if I might cry at any time. She and her husband have been sailing up on Lake Erie for the last two weeks. They are having tons of fun. I hate to call her on the cell phone and interrupt her fun. Hope everyone has a good Fourth.