Our First 4th of July

Happy 4th of July!!!

Team Darnell has worked together as a team to survive our first 4th of July as a family. I truly mean it when I say survive. Our 4th of July did not go exactly as planned. Yesterday afternoon, the house seemed a little warm but this is somewhat normal during our hot summer afternoons here in Florida. However, it was not normal to remain hot once the sun started to go down. When I checked the thermostat, it read 82 degrees and while I was standing there it went up to 83 degrees. I turned the air off and then back on and heard nothing... the A/C was NOT running! We called out an A/C guy (at the emergency overtime rate) to tell us that our motor was burned up and the part would probably not be available until MONDAY!! That's right... four days away! We pulled out the triplet card in the hopes this may expedite something. He agreed to call around and try to find a motor today but as it is a holiday he was not hopeful. We heard from his early this morning and he would not be able to get the part until Monday.

After my minor melt down, Mike was able to save the day! He quickly ran out and purchased a window unit and installed it in our family room/kitchen. He then sealed off this room from the rest of the house with drop cloths covering the doorways and put aluminum foil on the windows to block the heat from entering. The window unit, in combination with a few box fans and he was able to get the temperature in this one portion of the house down to a level that we could survive. It is not the cool 73 degrees we are used to but it is also not the 93 degrees the house would have climbed to without his intervention. So, we will remain like this until Monday! Please send cool thoughts our way.

The boys enjoyed hanging out most of the day in their diapers but the heat could not stop their crazy mother from dressing them up in their All-American Boy outfits to celebrate their first 4th of July! The sunglasses are essential for anyone hanging out on a sunny afternoon and they say "All American" and "My First 4th" on them. The boys were troopers during this warm afternoon and sadly went to bed just a few minutes before the fireworks started.

The big fireworks display in Tallahassee is conducted at Tom Brown Park. This park is less than two miles from our house. As such, we have the best seats in town to watch the fireworks on our back patio. Here is a little video of the fireworks display as we see them from our home:

We are very much looking forward to next year when the boys are old enough to actually stay up and possibly enjoy the fireworks for the first time!!

In my prior post, I was able to include pictures of Andrew and Jared smiling. I was finally able to catch Mr. Wesley with a cheesy 4th of July grin!

The Darnell boys are wonderful children and bring us joy each and every day! In addition to the pictures, we recently started taking video of the boys and Mike has been diligently working on putting together some of this footage. Here is a brief video of Team Darnell that Mike finished today:

I hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July!!!

Take care,

Kellie