Sunday at the Simmons: Life without the Stampede (we are managing)

So we finished another Stampede season and we did it well, never missing a single day except for the 4th (we gave our Martina McBride tickets to Miss Carly) when we had a houseful for the day. We set up the water slide and the kids cooled off before we had dinner (burgers and hotdogs on the grill, chips and dip,potato salad, pasta salad, baked beans and of course, Meredith's yummy dessert - blueberry cheesecake). We were joined this year by Kristi and her boys, Kaden and Korbin as well as Susan and Tony.

After dinner, we had a big card game (Shark Boots), teaching the

newcomers how to play along with a pre-dinner game of Apples to Apples. The three big kids did their usual thing....texting and being teenagers!

and enjoying getting their pictures taken!

Finally, it was dark enough to begin the favorite (especially with the boys) fireworks display.

(No one was injured during the filming of this tradition)
The final night was a concert by Big and Rich, which we were all fairly unimpressed with (maybe because it was the end....) and followed by the Demolition Derby on Sunday. (and the golf cart ride!)

Now that it's behind us, we're off and running (?) again. Some of us are anyway...my foot was actually broken (I've been limping around since before we were in California) and I now have a darling boot to wear (black goes with everything).

Good news from Brad's MRI showing no new growth. Hooray! Amie ran a half marathon over the weekend over trails (yikes), Carrie had her second round of oral surgery with a very painful weekend, and we were able to see Corbin's team (3V3 soccer) play Saturday and Sunday in Aurora. We took Sophie with us the first day and the girls enjoyed their time together.