BIG Fourth of July (by our standards)

This year we spent six hours actively celebrating the Fourth. We went to our friends/neighbors’ potluck (I threw together a napa cabbage salad) and ate a whole lot of beautiful salads and chips and a bit of barbecue, too. The kids – there were at least 20 of them – played whiffleball and jugball and various goofy things, and there were so many fireworks that we had to start them well before dark. We’ve always done ours one at a time, but they’d line them up and light three or four at once. Then, just when we had our finale going, some people off in the distance were lighting glowing lanterns that drifted up through the sky! I don’t even know how that works. When things wrapped up around 10:30 or so, we still had time to walk over to the school, where aerial fireworks (illegal) were happening in all directions! The very best was over to the west, a bunch of snakes rising into the sky and exploding, over an extended period of time. Then we went as far as the track and stood almost underneath some huge chrysanthemum ones, with David jumping up and down, tugging my sweater, and shrieking until he was hoarse. Finally we walked home.