Happy Fourth of July!

We are especially happy this Independence Day because we have electricity. Friday night, there was a series of strong winds and thunderstorms that moved through the Mid Atlantic. Tanja and I were in bed when it was going on and we didn't think much of it, but apparently a lot of trees and power lines blew down. We were without power for about 48 hours in temperatures that approached 100 degrees. It was miserable. Fortunately, other sections of our neighborhood had power, so we were able to get ice from the grocery store to pack in our fridge and freezer, go to the mall to cool down, find restaurants to feed us, etc. Nights were miserable trying to get ready for bed in the dark and dealing with the sweltering heat of our top story bedrooms.

The basement stayed cool during the outage, so we spent a lot of time down there. It was a relief when our power came back on at 10:45 PM Sunday night. Our local power company still reported about 100,000 customers without power this morning, and other utility companies have their own smaller numbers, so there are still plenty of people suffering out here. Ultimately, we feel blessed that we didn't have trees crashing through our roof or on top of our cars like some people in the area. I've long maintained that air conditioning is one of mankind's greatest inventions, and now I have evidence to back it up.

Making matters worse, Karina's molars have been coming in, so she was in pain and in a bad mood for most of the weekend. She now has 10 teeth, including two molars that have just barely broken through. She also has two more molars that are close behind, bringing her soon-to-be total to 12. Hopefully, those two molars will hurry up and break through so Karina can feel better.

Anyway, here are a couple pictures of Karina in what we term her pink sailor dress. We think she's cute.



Last year, we went down to DC to deal with the crowds and enjoy the Independence Day festivities there. This year, we value Karina's bedtime schedule too much to go see the fireworks, so we are skipping that part of celebrating. However, we did go and enjoy some of the family fun activities at Fort Meade. A lot of the attractions were inflatable games like this basketball shooting game (I was a pretty good shot).


I also ran up a very steep wall.


Karina enjoyed being outside.


However, as soon as she got inside the rides, they were just too scary for her. I don't think she had much fun in the bouncy castle. I promise, we aren't abusing her - don't call child protective services on us!


They had a few carnival style rides too. This one spun you around in a bathtub shaped seat and you could spin the bathtub if you wanted. We kept our bathtub from spinning when we went on it to try and keep Karina calm and not dizzy.


At some points, our little adrenaline junkie of a daughter seemed to almost enjoy the ride. As much as she loves being tossed in the air and swinging around when we are the ones throwing and swinging her, I thought she would have more fun on this ride.


The periodic looks of complete terror that I saw on her face would indicate I was completely wrong with my prediction.


Yes, I guess we are candidates for worst parents in the world for this week. At least we have some hilarious photos that we can submit to Awkward Family Photos.