how we celebrated

It just so happens that Chris' aunt & uncle were vacationing on the west coast and needed someone to housesit for them over the holiday weekend, and our weekend was open, so our plans were made! Their house is a large log cabin tucked back in the woods away from pretty much everyone and everything. They have the best pool (organic shape like it was meant to be there) with a waterfall, a hot tub, a large pond (story about that further down), a gym, and lots more to keep us occupied! Of course my favorite part was swimming. I've always loved the water, and I'm better in that than I am on land! Side note, we wrote Chris' aunt & uncle a note before we left, and I made Chris write this, "Danielle's stealth and speed are unrivaled, and I (Chris) am jealous." I made him put his name in parenthesis so they'd know who the jealous one was. I kept making Chris race across the pool with me, and I honestly can't believe he kept doing it because I won every time! I'm a mean wife, and he's a good sport.

A little underwater camera action, and of course the infamous hand heart. What can I say, I heart swimming! I haven't been practicing my handstands for a while, so could only walk on my hands for a few steps before I flipped over. A few years ago I got so good I could walk on my hands half way across the shallow end!

We brought Flojo out to the pool with us in her travel cage, and if there's one thing she inherited from me (besides her love of eating), it's her love of playing in the water, so we set the hose to mist and let her flap and shake until her little birdie heart was content!

Now, onto the pond story. So the pond is really quite large, and a nice, relaxing addition with it's gentle waterfall, pretty goldfish and lush water plants. Having said that, it's also the place where I could have been viciously murdered by a copperhead. On Sunday evening, I was feeling sort of irritated (thanks, PMS), so I decided I'd go sit by the pond and watch the fish and the frogs while I switched back from monster to human. We'd been told that snakes occasionally visit the pond to eat the goldfish, and at first I had my guard up, but since I didn't see any the first few days, I got comfortable... big mistake. So I was sitting there looking around when I noticed a copperhead to my right poking its head out of the water watching me. I told Chris a couple days before that, as he was going back in the house, and I was walking around the pond by myself, "if you hear a scream, either I fell in, or I saw a snake." So I started screaming and basically made one huge record-breaking long jump from the pond to the house and told Chris, "A SSSNNNAAAAKKKKKKE!" So he went outside thinking he'd use something to sling it into the woods, and he realised it was a deadly copperhead. So yeah, I used dirty language and refused to visit the pond again. Ever.

I'd said something to Chris about getting sparklers so we could have a little celebration, so after we finished dinner on Saturday night, he surprised me with regular sparklers, and a kind called "morning glories" which changed colors as they burned. He was a pro and spelled his name, but I'm really not sure what I was doing in that picture!

So, that's how we spent our Independence Day, how was yours? What did you do to celebrate?