As the holiday weekend draws to a close, I hope you got the chance to enjoy it. We certainly enjoyed it, though it was toned down from previous years.
We didn’t have the entire family with us this year. Some of the family was sick and some were invited elsewhere or had something else going on. We tossed a few burgers and dogs on the grill and enjoyed a bonfire.
It’s been awhile since we have been able to enjoy a bonfire, so this was really nice.
The fireflies were plentiful and beautiful that night. Ella and Andrew loved catching them.
They had a little Tupperware container they were trying to put them in, but I think the lid wasn’t on right. Every time they came back to drop one in, the others were gone.
Sam bought us all matching shirts to wear. July is National Hot Dog Month, and she’s been thinking a lot about her sister Grace who passed away. The shirts have Mickey Mouse on them and say Hot Diggity Dog on them. Grace loved Mickey Mouse.
We were missing some of the cousins, but quite a few were with us and they had a blast.
We get to watch the fireworks right from our backyard every year. This year they were not too bad. They had some new ones, but I felt other years were better. For what it is worth, the town raises ,money every year to do them. Maybe they were short on donations this year. You still can’t beat a decent show…
Oh, and incidentally, I was able to get my yearly flag photos. Six Fourths of July for Ella and four for Andrew.
My family and I had a nice weekend celebrating America’s birthday.
My wife had to work Sunday night, so she came home and slept for part of the day before getting up to get ready for the festivities. As I have mentioned in the past, our city puts on a nice little fireworks show that we can watch right from our back yard. Because of this, the Fourth has kind of been “our” holiday.
Most of Sam’s family had planned to be up north at her dad’s cottage for the holiday. Her mom was going to be home with her sister and asked if it would be ok to come over. We had no plans, so we were more than happy to have them come over. It wasn’t long before the rest of her family decided that they were going to come over, too!
After Sam got up and we all got ready, we posed for our annual “Family Fourth of July selfie. I’m sure that we did this long before Ella was born, but they have meant more with her in them. I went back and found the pictures from the years before and put them back to back to back. This year, we forgot to look at the year’s prior so we could all be standing the same way, but we got every in it and looking at the camera. Here is July 4th – 2020, 2021 and 2022 (with the addition of Andrew):
Sam had looked back at her Facebook memories and there was a very cute picture of Ella walking down the sidewalk with a flag in her hand. We tried to recreate it with her this year, and then had AJ try it, too.
She had on the cutest outfit! Her shorts are an American flag!
I love the way Andrew looks here! He was waving the flag as I took the picture.
Sam’s folks brought hot dogs and we cooked them up on the grill. There was fresh pineapple, watermelon, and homemade cookies. Best of all, there was family. My nieces and nephew were over and Ella and Andrew had a blast playing with them. Aunt Emily brought glow necklaces, glow bracelets, and glow sticks so each kid was lit up pretty good.
I fogged the back yard with some spray I had never used before. It was made by Coleman and it is meant for camp grounds. It was great, because I made it through the night without a mosquito bite. I wish it would have repelled the flying beetles that seemed to be all over the place, though.
Around 10, we all gathered up our chairs and went out to the back of the yard to watch the fireworks show. Our town put on about a 30 minute show, which lit up the sky! At first, Ella was loving it. “Wow! Fireworks! Amazing!” she yelled. But after about 10 minutes, she was ready to go in the house. Andrew was ready to be done, too. Sam went inside with them, and the nieces and nephew.
I was actually standing in a bad spot when I took these pictures. You can see the tree in the left of the shot. If you get closer to the end of our back yard, you get a pretty clear view of the entire show.
The hardest part of the night is when the show is over and folks are trying to leave. Our street is full of cars leaving from the show. Eventually, all the family left and Sam and I were able to get the kids down to sleep. It was almost midnight and they were still up!! I don’t think they’ve ever stayed up that late before.
All in all a very nice Fourth with the family. I hope you and yours had a great holiday as well.
Various Ramblings of a Nostalgic Italian 