A Review of the Fourth

From The Fourth & ...

Yesterday was great - good food, good fun (I'm still a bit surprised that I initiated a volleyball game), but the best thing was family. It's sad that we all live within 3 hours of each other and hardly ever get together. I've heard of families living across the country and seeing each other more often. But maybe they can stand each other for longer periods. Ha. Seriously, I love being with my family, in all the ways we amuse and annoy one another.

I especially love it when we do illegal things together. Dad bought $600 worth of fireworks and Uncle Rob, our own "expert", set them off. There were some really nice ones, ones that freaked out my cousin Brian (oh, wait, that's all of them) and my aunt Kris. People in the neighborhoods all around us were setting theirs off, and we enjoyed the light show for well over an hour. We got a little rowdy - all of us younger ones (excluding Abby, of course) had been drinking (I had all of three Twisters in me) and we were shouting challenges and smack to the other people around us setting off their fireworks, none of whom could hear us. But it was fun.

The highlight of my evening, though, was the old photo album Kris brought up for me to start scanning. It has a lot of pictures of my grandma - Dad's mom - in it, and even a letter from Great-Grandpa Bill - my grandma's stepfather, whom I never met; indeed, I barely remember GG, my grandma's mother - to Great-Grandma Lila/GG (Lila is such a beautiful name!). There were more personal notes in this one, and I feel a kindred spirit to GG who made several of these albums, two of which were destroyed because of the fire. I just hate two things she did: taping the photos to the album pages (though I'm sure she didn't know any better), and writing people's names right on the photo - sometimes even on the people. According to the inscription in the front of the album, a first for any of them I've seen, she even "antiqued" (I believe she was actually referring to the three hand-tinted photos) some of them. I will definitely be scanning and archiving these photos (more memory art projects!) - I may even create a flickr account, since I've used up so much of my Picasa account already.

I've slept in too long today, even allowing for the fact that I drove home through smoke-heavy streets to get home and to bed just before 1 AM to fall asleep to the sounds of firecrackers still going off intermittently. I should mow - the yard needs it desperately, and I'm tired of looking like that house on our street - but I'm feeling icky and still smell of smoke, DEET and sunscreen so I want to go ahead a take my shower. Uncle Rob & Aunt Kris and their youngest daughter Vickie, along with her boyfriend Keven, are still in town. I think I'll get cleaned up, run a couple errands, and get back over to Dad's to visit a little longer.