Celebrating the Ordinary: Love the Fourth...

“There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.” — Bill Clinton

There is so much right in this country.

The fourth of July is our time to celebrate the good ole" USA... and if there is one thing we do really well around here, it is that we celebrate really well. In fact I think celebrating is my favorite. Kind of like smiling is Elf's favorite. We love the fourth around here quite a bit and I thing the fourth is my favorite too. So celebrating the fourth is for reals my favorite. Wait... I think I say that every time I am writing about a holiday.

But for reals I think it is.

Tom and I are creatures of habit and all our holidays don't deviate much year to year. I like to say we are strong in our traditions. Traditions are important right? The only thing that changes is if we have guests or not. This year we didn't. :(

Our day goes like this...

We go for a run

We hurry home fix a big breakfast and eat it in the backyard.

We gather everybody's bikes and since we are in a hurry all the bike tires are flat and we have to pump up every tire.This takes time and now we are in a bigger hurry but after what seems like we have been in the driveway for the better of three hours we are ready to go and we ride our bikes down the trail to the Danville parade. This is my personal highlight and as I was wearing a red, white and blue dress this year (dang I don't have a picture of myself...I will see if Tom has one because it's important for the visual) and I was on my red beach cruiser, with a flag coming out of the basket, I had several people comment on my patriotism..haha

Then we watch the parade...perfect temp this year btw.

Extra special too because our Benjamin was in the parade.

His Rugby team "The Oaks"were the national champs this year. I know seriously...the best in the whole stinkin country.

It is just so amazing and cool and fantastic and wonderful.

So they got there very own truck in the parade. ;) I was so excited and I was taking so many pictures that I caused quite a scene. Good thing it wasn't just me flipping out but Tom as well. He took some of the crazy off of me because it was a toss up of who was more excited.

Then we have a huge barbecue at our house and it is so. much. fun.

We swim and make home made ice cream and we talk and we laugh and we sweat because it is so hot and I love it so much. This year we had Miller's, Keysors, Christensen's and of course John and Ann. I don't even have one picture because in the chaos I forgot all about my camera and that does not happen very often. But it did and now I don't have a picture.

After all of our friends leave John and Ann and our family go in search of fireworks.

Sometimes we are lucky.

Last year we saw them going off in Berkeley behind us and in front of us as we were driving across the bay bridge...Amazing.

This year we weren't lucky and we saw like 1 in the way way distance and we really tried to find more but to no avail but we were still happy because we think we are funny and no one else does shenanigans like we do. I mean you have to be nuts/funny to start driving into the city at 10:00 with no plan and hoping to see fireworks.

But it was just so much fun....I mean just the best and I feel so lucky and I went to bed thinking how much is right with America.

I am so blessed.

We went to Carmel for a couple of days before the 4rth and we drove home late on the July 3rd.

Ella and Ann were at girls camp so it was just John, Tom, Ben, Charlie and me.

Just me and the boys. :)