Fourth

For our Fourth of July weekend, we were visited by my brother and his family (by way of Chicago and Washington, I might have mentioned this before) and even though they were only here for 3 days/4 nights and even though they insisted they were only here to relax after 3 days of driving, we were run ragged the whole time…

Even before they arrived on Thursday evening, we spent pretty much the whole of the day running around, cleaning up, preparing guest bedrooms and what have you, as well as renew Robyn’s tags and clean her car. So they arrived around 7pm and we gave them the 5c tour, helped unload their SUV, and then took them for dinner at a Japanese Steakhouse for some hardcore flaming hibachi action (as well as Colin trying to impress us with his Kobe beef knowledge). Apparently they liked our beds as they slept for most of the next morning, in fact we had to crank up the early morning Rock Band action to wake them.

We then took them to Birkdale Village in Huntersville for some lunch at Maddi’s Southern Bistro (a place we take everyone) and to show them the village and also show where we used to live. Robyn and Heather decided to run in the central fountain to cool off as it was hot and humid the whole day, and with it being hot and humid that meant there was a nice big thunderstorm brewing away while we toured the Davidson 4th Celebration. While Heather was enjoying herself on the kids attractions, I managed to lose my phone in a quick dash for some shelter. I didn’t even realise I had for maybe 25 minutes, and a quick search of the path I took revealed nothing. Now coming where I come from, if you lose something like an iPhone, it’s as good as gone before it even hits the ground, but in sleepy Davidson it’s a different matter altogether. A quick chat with a police officer revealed it was found and it currently resides in the Davidson PD, and a quick walk there and a quick call to it proving it was mine was all that was needed. Crisis averted.

In fact, we discovered this morning that Davisdon PD emailed Robyn’s work email from it to let her know that “The owner of this iPod lost it. Davidson police has it.” and gave a number to call. My faith in humanity has definitely been restored.

Now, for the evenings entertainment we had a literal front row view of Davidson’s fireworks display, due to where we live, we’re right on the Cornelius/Davidson border and they were launching the fireworks within 150 yards of our front door. It was very loud, and smelled of sulphur for hours afterwards, but we sat on our upstairs patio and took them in at close range and it was awesome. If they do the same next year, we’re going to set up a little lemonade stand out front and make a killing!

Saturday, we took them to Mooresville for lunch at a Cracker Barrel before doing a little shopping before we met up with Jill and Ryan for a cheesesteak dinner and some bowling. On Sunday we were invited out on Jill and Ryan’s boat on Lake Norman, Heather really enjoyed herself both in and on the water but in the end we had to high tail it back to the shore as a lightning storm quickly rolled in. We rounded off their weekend with a trip to Concord Mills.

They left early on Monday morning and we basically collapsed for the rest of the day.

All in all, a good time. Now we’re gearing up for our UK visit later next month…