'Merica!

Happy Fourth of July!  It's a tradition each Independence Day to head over across the street to our neighbors to watch a little fireworks display, and then when they're done we head deeper into the neighborhood for the other fireworks display, which includes some monsters.  It's a loud night, something like the sound of warfare all around.  The weather was ideal for pyrotechnics, although there was a threatening amount of rain south of us.  It made its own noise, but never got close enough to us to cause worry.  Afterwards, Maddie and I were spending some time with sparklers taking a few photos of Maddie and then also doing some time exposure shots where we set the shutter to stay open for thirty seconds or so while running around the front yard.

It was a nice day.  We grilled hot dogs and hamburgers, and had all the fixings and traditional things like ears of corn, potato salad, macaroni salad, baked beans, salad, and all the toppings for the burgers and hot dogs.  It was quite the feast, including watermelon too!  Our salt and pepper shaker are the Liberty Bell and the White House.  So yeah, tonight we were saying to one another, "Can you please pass the White House?"

I got a new vinyl record yesterday of patriotic tunes, and we were playing that.  Robert Shaw was conducting, and it was actually a good album.  Of course we also plug in the Voices of Liberty and a Phil Driscoll collection of patriotic music.  

We were spending a lot of today preparing for Summer Xtreme.  It's going to be a good one.  We read tonight, and we said our prayers.  Sleep did not come for me though, nor Mom, mainly because she was taking care of me.  My blood pressure was pretty high all night, and it was kind of scary.  It might be a dietary thing, I think.

Anyway, below you'll see a collection of Fourth of July photos from across the street, deep in the neighborhood too.  We ran into some friends and neighbors where we sat together watching the rockets red glare as we screamed out things lie, "'Merica!"