A Late 4th of July Recap

Like I said on Saturday, the last couple of weeks have been crazy. Thus I am posting my 4th of July recap on the 19th. I'm two weeks late but at least I am posting them. For the 4th we go out to the Community College and set up there just after lunch. We bring canopies, chairs, tables, food and water, cornhole, and other games. It is offered at church as an open church event, but within a community event. People from church come out and bring their chairs, food and such and we all just hang out. It's a great time of fellowship while we enjoy a nice day, play frisbee and cornhole, as well as interact with friends from the community who are there.

The guys all look so thrilled and energetic ;)

All of us interns went out just after lunch and set everything up so that it was ready when everyone else go there. Once everything was set up we got to relax for a little bit. The guys just look so thrilled to be out there don't they lol. They actually had a good time, they just didn't know I was taking this picture. We helped monitor the bounce houses again this year which is fun but it can tedious since we just stand there and tell kids when they can go up and come down. But it is fun at the same time since we get to interact with the kids. 

Chad, Mark, Bri and David playing football

Throughout the day we had games of cornhole, frisbee, football and t-ball going on. We had some family visitors there and we always have some people from the Kankakee Valley Theatre Association group come hang out for a little while which is fun. Bri got to join us for the day since she was in town and not touring that day.

Broshi, Caleb, Andy & Jarrod (somewhere) playing football and Caitlyn was playing with a child

All around it was a great day and for the first year in a while it was a mild day. It was perfect to be out and about for the 4th. We got to enjoy the Kankakee Valley Youth Symphony Orchestra and the Kankakee Valley Symphony Orchestra. They also do a military tribute for all the branches and that was hard for some people there as it reminded them of relatives who are no longer with them. The KVSO played the some music from Star Wars if I remember correctly.

Some more of the crew

Ignore the quality of these pictures. I was taking them from my iPad one handed and in a fairly quick manner since my ice cream was melting! And the green smoke in the background was someone setting off a stink bomb. That was not pleasant in the least. Once it hit about 7:30ish we went ahead and took down canopies and tables. We took everything we didn't need to watch fireworks back to the bus so that we didn't have to take it down and carry it down in the midst of the chaos of everyone packing up and heading out. About 8:30 they started the fireworks.

 

It was a great show and it was a beautiful night for it. Minus the bugs who seemed to like everyone that night. Once the show was over we picked up all our trash, gathered the camp chairs, and grabbed the last cooler. We headed to the bus and we prepped for the best part of the night yet. See, we've become smart in how we do the heading out part of the night. There are so many people all trying to get out at once that it is mass chaos and takes forever. So we bring a cooler full of about 6 or 7 watermelon, a big sharp knife, salt, trash bags and plenty of napkins. We popped up a table and laid out a plastic cover, then out came the watermelon. We cut them up and people just come and grab them. Friends are invited to join us and it's a great time to fellowship and enjoying the evening while everyone else is stressed about getting out. We generally have a decent sized group. It doesn't take long to go through all of the watermelons as you can guess! By the time we finish though, the parking lot is pretty much empty and we have an easy time packing up and leaving. It's a great way to end out the day!!

One quick story from the night. A friend of ours, Jade, and her family joined us for watermelon after the show. She had went with us to camp the week before and had become friends with all of us interns. Well, Broshi is affectionately referred to as being "swole". He had told Jade that saying "swole" when you pick up something heavy, or in this case try to break a big triangular piece of watermelon, it makes the task easier. Jade didn't think it would work but tried anyway. So here we are all standing there talking, laughing and enjoying our watermelon when all of a sudden Jade says, "Swole!" quite loudly. At the same time she is saying it she attempts to break the watermelon. Much to her surprise and everyone else's, the piece of watermelon broke ridiculously easy. The look of shock on her face was so great! We all just busted out laughing while she just stood there amazed at what just happened. So funny!! To say the least, she believes him now.

Anyways, that's enough for the crazy stories. Have a great day! God Bless!