Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Independence Day!

It's the Fourth of July and I'm lounging in bed with my husband, both on our respective laptops, doing a whole lot of nothing, debating whether or not to get out and go to a parade or perhaps take in a fireworks show tonight. He mentioned staying home to "the craziness in the neighborhood, so we can protect our house and keep the dogs sane." Sigh! I think he just got old.

I remember when I used to dress my kids up in little matching patriotic outfits and go to the Bothell parade every year. They would stand on the curb, cover their ears at the Pirate cannon "booms", eagerly grab candy off the pavement. That was usually followed by a bbq or party at our house, then a trip to the old Lynnwood high school field for a fireworks show. Some years we'd skip the public display in favor of blowing up hundreds of dollars of fireworks purchased at a local stand. We'd light them off in the street, and tell the story of the one year the Roman candle went awry and into the entire stack of fireworks in the garage! Good times.

Today Hayley is working all day at Subway. She has her own patriotic plans - when asked what kind of cheese customers want, if they don't choose American, she will hold up a slice, sniff it and say "Are you sure? It smells like freedom!" Here's hoping she doesn't get fired.

Hannah will be joining a friend downtown at Gasworks Park to watch the frenzied and way-too-crowded Seattle public display. Considering there's been a shooting in downtown Seattle or the vicinity nearly every night for the past week, I'm not too excited about her going down there. Not to mention the higher incident of car accidents on the Fourth. But, YOLO, right?

Arlie is in Spokane, where she will also be downtown, enjoying the city's festivities with her relatives.

Harrison is spending the day with his dad and best friend, where he will blow up his purchases from Boom City.

So, that leaves us childless, firework-less, plan-less on this (shockingly) sunny 4th of July. Time to seek out an adventure! Time to eat from the patriotic 4th food groups: hot dogs, lemonade, corn on the cob, and watermelon! Time to put the flag decorations up (hey, it's still the 4th! And patriotic theme is chic for summer, right?)! Time to put on the flag t-shirt and paint the fingernails red, white and blue (ok, maybe not)!

Happy Independence Day!

1 comment:

jeff said...

And it ended up being a fine 4th:) BTW, I can't think of a better, more lively fourth of July display than 100s of our neighbors trying to out do each other with fireworks. it's truly unbelievable and an amazing display. The best part is we don't have to go anywhere and fight the crowds.