4th of July

I have always loved the 4th of July. My childhood memories of the 4th of July include neighborhood block parties, parades with the neighborhood kids (where we decorated our bikes and rode up and down the street while my mom played patriotic music on a tape player in our wagon), swim parties at our house, lots of watermelon, fireworks at Fort Ord, and the annual watching of "Yankee Doodle Dandy." As usual, my mom took advantage of the holiday as an opportunity to celebrate. Good, good memories.

Since moving to Arkansas, our celebration has been quite different. First of all, July is too hot for block parties and kid parades. Second, there aren't a whole lot of big fireworks shows to choose from, so the main shows are very crowded. BUT...I never said different was bad.

Each 4th of July here has been different and special. Last year we went to Jackson, Tennessee with our friends Brian and Carol, and spent a very relaxing 4 days at Carol's parents' house, playing canasta and eating yummy food. This year we stayed in town and had a blast.

At lunch time we went down to our community pool for a potluck swim party. We ate hot dogs and potluck food, and the lifeguards led games for the kids. Popsicles and watermelon added a special something to the afternoon. In the evening, we joined our friends Jim and Karon, and went out to Karon's parents' house in the country. Yes, we ate. Yummy food, and lots of it! But the main focus of our evening was fireworks. In my book, being able to shoot your own fireworks is more fun that watching fireworks, even if our fireworks aren't as impressive. The fireworks were interrupted by a thunderstorm that came crashing through, soaking the yard and cooling the air down to a pleasant 74 degrees. We took advantage of the rain delay to eat the homemade ice cream Karon and her mom made. Oh. My Gosh! It was so good!
It was dark by the time we finished the fireworks and headed home. All the way home I could see fireflies twinkling in the woods.

Here are a few pictures of our evening. I left my memory card at home, so my camera sat very sadly in the bag. I commandeered Karon's camera, though, and did my best with it. It was a good camera, I just don't know it like I know my own camera.