Our Fourth of July!

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY! I am so grateful for this country, our freedoms, the beauty of the land, the bounty we enjoy. We are so blessed!

We decided to celebrate a small town Fourth of July and went to visit Logandale, Nevada (a very small town where my sister lives with her husband and daughter.) They have one grocery store and no stoplights, just to give you the idea of how small it is. The town put on a flag raising ceremony, followed by a free pancake breakfast, and then the annual "candy drop." It was so cool that a culture like that still exists. So we got up at the crack of dawn and went to the flag raising ceremony, ate delicious pancakes, and got ready for the candy drop. I guess it is their substitute for a parade because they send a guy up in an ultralight aircraft (it looks like a kite with a motor) and then he flys over the fairgrounds a couple times and drops 100 pounds of candy onto the grass. The field becomes a fighting frenzy for sugar and then it's over.

So like I said, we got ready for the candy drop, finding a nice shady spot under a tree. The ultralight took off, the kids lined up for the dash of the year. As the ultralight turned toward the fairgrounds, we noticed that the kids were all looking our way. This was a little awkward for my sister, who was nursing her baby. "Why is everyone looking at me?" she laughed. The sound of a motor drew our eyes skyward. The ultralight was over our head; we saw him, as well as a sky speckled loads of saltwater taffy and Bit o' Honeys! AHHH! If you have ever had 100 pounds of candy dropped on your head, you will understand how we felt. It's weird! Split seconds later we were drowning in a flood of screaming children; my sister nursing her baby, Ava clinging to my legs, it was classic:)

That day we played and talked together, Ava played in the wading pool with her cousin, and we had an American dinner. We made red, white, and blue popsicles and a red, white, and blue dessert (strawberry shortcake with berries, hmmm my mouth is watering...) That night we watched a pretty awesome fireworks show for a tiny town and part of the small town tradition is for everyone to shoot off illigal fireworks. So although we did not participate in such evil, we were surrounded by it:) and I was sure we were going to get blown up. (A little jumpy, yes, I am!)

I hope you all enjoyed your holiday!