American Pride and Joy

As I had mentioned in an earlier post, my family does 4th of the July in a big way. Food, family, and fireworks! It's the best.

Our family seemed smaller this year. It felt like there were many missing from our numbers: Grandpa and Bill, Derrick and DJ, mom's cousin Greg, Scott's girlfriend Peggy, Debby and Woody, Terri and her family... Kristina and J'sai were only there for a short time... But we enjoyed the gathering all the same.

Fort Vancouver didn't do their usual fireworks display, so we went ahead and made our usual spectacular show just a bit more exciting. I didn't get video, but I did manage to snap some pretty good shots. I'm using Grandpa's camera for a little while and I discovered the fireworks setting. It took a little while but I eventually got my timing down.

This was Jade's first Independence Day. She did really good with all the people and with our attempts to honor Bill with dry ice bombs. But when we sat down to watch the fireworks, she freaked out at the first shower of sparks. Poor baby! She ran into the house in terror so I put her in the safety of Troy's old kennel where she settled down and waited until I came back to get her.

I put together a little slide show of the day for all those who were unable to attend the festivities. I hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday.




(In the interest of truthfulness, I feel I should disclose the fact that a couple of the pictures are not actually from yesterday, but from the BBQ a couple years ago. It's just that I had no pictures of a couple of people I really wanted represented.)