4th of July

Happy Independence Day, everyone! I hope you’ve all had a terrific day, full of family and friends. This is just a collection of semi-random thoughts on the holiday – thank you for indulging me.

One of the best ways to start this day is to read to Declaration of Independence. I love it so much that NPR hosts read it out loud on the radio every year. It helps get me in the right frame of mind. I missed much of it this year (including the part about “the merciless Indian savages”) since I had to get some new pants for the critter during that time, but still.

We had a big breakfast this morning, but not quite as big as the 4th of July breakfasts I grew up with at the lake. Lots of extended families would be out there, and we all got together in the meadow for the biggest breakfast you’ve ever seen. HUGE amounts of rich, southern food. And of course this is after the adults had already fortified themselves with bloody mary’s and milk punch (I still cringe, just considering the fact that such a beverage exists. blech.)

We were invited to two parties today, one in the afternoon and one in the evening, and we each made it to one of them. The critter woke up with a fever this morning and hasn’t been doing so well today. The highest the fever got was 102.7, even with Tylenol – kind of scary. He slept a lot and was cranky when he was awake and didn’t eat very much. So I went to the afternoon party and Dave went to the evening party, so the critter could rest and also not infect any other critters.

I did make some deviled eggs for each party. Gotta love some deviled eggs. It turns out that neither Dave nor I actually ate any however. The critter woke up from his nap while I was at party #1 and I had to leave before getting any. When Dave was at party #2, he put the deviled egg plate (yes I have a couple of deviled egg plates now!) down and they were all GONE before he had any. Hee!

Fireworks when I was little were a smallish (but fun!) affair at the lake, usually shot off by whichever adults had had the least amount to drink. Kids shot bottle rockets and sparklers (sometimes at each other, but not many fingers were lost). There was also a fireworks display that the city did from the Rec Center, and our neighbors down the street had the best view from their back porch. It’s a crazy cool house that’s been on the market for years because few people want such a funky house (with an elevator!). The view from our side yard was pretty great, too, but lacked seating other than a blanket on the grass. Tonight’s fireworks were viewed from our couch, due to sick critter and rain. But we did see some of our town fireworks out our bedroom window. We’ll take the critter out to the mall sometime in the years to come.

Now we’re finishing the day off watching the end of Jaws. I need to get Dave to do a write up of the shark fishing expedition that he, Daddy and Brandon enjoyed while we were at the beach. He loved it, unsurprisingly.