Independence Day, Independent Week

Our July 4th celebration began with preparations throughout the latter part of last week. I made slaw and mock potato salad, and started a flag cake, went food shopping with Dad, and visited the fireworks stand (Bob's) with Neil, Joe, Tina, and her mom and cute l'il bro Ethan. I am telling you, buying fireworks on July 3rd at 9:30 p.m. is downright pleasant! I am permanently switching from buying them on July 4th. It's always too hot and too many people and all the pagodas are usually gone. And the fireworks workers smell. Anyway, we had an awesome time picking out fountains and 'silent' fireworks like tanks and tractors and flowers and UFOs and snakes (I know, lame) and turtles. (Silent because Dad said the cops were cracking down.)

Oh! I forgot. During the week, Sean was being awful cute during Playtime. Here he is watching his own kind on YouTube:



Okay, back to the subject.

Friday dawned temperate and partly cloudy (what am I saying? I wouldn't know if it dawned green clouds and blue and red striped sun considering my wake-up time), and I set to work. I finished the Flag Cake (which quickly turned into a simple striped cake--I'm no artist), kept watch over Daddy's beer-marinating brisket, and got the house ready for the evening. Amanda and Braden joined us, and Dad and Steve pulled up from the airport at about 6:00. Steeeeeeve! He makes me laugh so hard. And I'll never stop with the gay jokes. (Last night we were playing Yahtzee [Triple], and he rolled the dice and said all happily 'small straight'! I said 'It may be small, but it sure as hell ain't straight'--one of my best performances, I think.)

We started dinner, and my mock potato salad was teased mercilessly. After we were full of Hoss' sides and brisket, we adjourned to the front porch.

We began small, with snappers (both Amanda and a visiting Jordan Parshall got Bum Boxes) and snakes, (which....always boring. Always):

See how much fun everyone's having?

...then tried out an innocuous-looking Frog in the front yard. Frogs are supposed to do this:



Emits Sparks and Flames, maybe lets out a whistle...not much else. I mean, this thing doesn't have wheels, you know? We considered putting it on the porch and lighting it, but thought better of it.

It was a good thing we did.

That Front Yard Frog flat-out exploded. Like, big ol' BOOM! Frog parts everywhere! No fizzling, no minor sparks.

After that, we moved to the backyard. I long for the kind of huge patio/basketball court or whatever it is that Ree The Pioneer Woman used, but we had to make do with Dad's temporary patio (he's putting in a new back porch, so all the bricks have been taken up, and relocated to the front driveway--which looks awesome).

I tried taking photos, but they were mainly blurry...




However, once Neil took over, all was right again. He got this unbelievable shot of the Raddest Firework Of Them All, the TRACTOR!




Soon after we dramatically reduced our fireworks stash, we headed over to Turner Avenue parking garage to watch Fire in the Sky. Roger and Heidi, Steve's ex and a super-duperly sweet girl, joined us, as did Tina. I busted out the Ol' Glory Energy Drinks ("Keeping Americans Strong") and Neil and Joe showed their patriotism:


I noticed that Mom decided to peek out a bit and join us...only partly, of course; she's never liked fireworks...



Fire in the Sky was....meh. Just meh. I had much more fun at home, and when we returned and shot off the best fountains ($4-5 a pop, people!), I felt we'd ended the night on a high note.

So that was our 4th. Dad, show some respect to our country, will ya?

Thanks!

So Monday morning, I woke up earlier than I have in a lo-o-o-ong time (EIGHT a.m.!) and Neil and I drove to StL so he could fly off on a jet plane to business training in D.C.

I wasn't looking forward to this week, but I had a consolation prize to look forward to: a Visit With Emily that day! I first got mondo-serious lost, though, trying to get back on 170 from my innocent little stop in the Ladue Barnes & Noble. After about half an hour of fruitlessly driving toward what I thought was Delmar, I called Dad. He's much more of a map-reader than I am (and yeah, come to think of it, I totally had an atlas in the car with me. Duh) and quickly ascertained where I was, and where I needed to turn.

I made it to Em's, and got a chance to enjoy her heavily-shaded beautiful street for a few minutes before she arrived from teaching. It's getting to be summer, finally (though I wouldn't care if this early-fall weather goes on forever), so the day was pretty muggy and stickily hot, but you wouldn't even know it under the Westminster trees. Emily arrived, all adorably curly-headed and rosy-cheeked, and we traipsed upstairs to her little family.

After hanging out for a couple hours (Noah. is. CUTE!!!!), we visited what may be my favorite store on Earth, Archiver's, in this kick-ass mall--The Mills. We took our time strolling around, coming up with wedding-invite options, and I am *totally* excited to start in on those details.

The rest of the day went fast...TOO fast! Noah is at his possible cutest during dinner/bath/bed time, and I was thrilled to see my little unofficial nephew growing up, but not too much.

I drove home late, because I can't leave when there's still a million things to chat about and giggle over. It's way too much fun to be with my bestie. But I got some Diet Sunkist from Walgreen's and, armed with my Jan Karon cd, I made it home safely.

Getting to sleep wasn't so easy. It was hard coming home to a dark, empty apartment, and even harder to fall asleep. I don't think that's going to change until Friday night...but that's okay. I kinda like knowing I don't fall into independent living too easily!