Happy Fourth of July!

We've had a very busy day today. We usually don't do much on the fourth but today we broke that tradition. First thing we did was go to the parade downtown. We all rode our bikes. I am so happy that we can go on family bikes rides now. Everybody is big enough to keep up and I'm proud to say that Joe did GREAT today. No crying, no complaining, and he was very brave on the hills. We got to our parade viewing spot just as the parade was coming, it was perfect timing. Then we watched the most boring parade ever. This is an election year and well over half the entries were just people campaigning. One car with signs and lots of people wearing the appropriate t-shirt and shouting out "Vote for ..." and passing out candy. There was one band, some horses, a guy riding an old fashioned bike, and politicians and not much in between. No cute twirlers, no boy scout troops, no nothing. Then at the end the fire truck, ambulance, and some other emergency vehicle thought it would be fun to have "excessive siren blasting." I'm not kidding, those sirens went on for about 5 minutes and they drove so slowly. People had their hands over their ears, babies were screaming, and I was thinking--do these guys (or gals) driving these trucks think people like this? Sorry for the rant here but it was really a terrible parade. My kids got candy and that's all they cared about--no complaints from them. Anyway, on with our day. We came home and rested and cooled off. I forgot to mention it was hot too and we were in the sun. So, while I cooled off I finished the book I've been reading, "Dear John" by Nicholas Sparks. It was a wonderful story--all Nick's books are. I think I've read too many though. This one was a little too predictable, I loved it anyway though and cried at the end of course. After our rest and candy fest we went to a friend's mom's for lunch and swimming. For all of you nosy people--that would be Joa's mom's house. Joa is in town and we had a great afternoon catching up with her and her family. I think Joe was in the pool for about 3 hours! He had a ball. Then home again for a little more rest and then off to the fireworks tonight. Sorry for all the complaining but I have to gripe a little bit more. They always do the fireworks at nine so we started walking from here at about 8:40. Well, they started early this year--about 8:45 so we had to walk fast in order to get to a place where we could see them. Thankfully, it's a long fireworks show so we were able to see plenty. What was weird was the ending--they did a big grand finale and just as we were about to get up they shot up one more firework. So, we assumed it wasn't over and sat. About 3 or 4 minutes later (just as we were getting up to leave) another lone firework. And 3 or 4 minutes later another one, again just as we were getting up to leave. Three must have been the charm so after the third lone firework the show was finally over. Weird. Anyway, the kids had fun and we enjoyed the company of our neighbors while we walked and got to see plenty of fireworks. All in all we had a great day even if our town was a little odd this year.