Happy Birthday, America!

It turned out to be a beautiful day for the 4th of July, and we headed over to Bethany's house to decorate our bicycles for the parade. My kids still decided they'd rather catch candy than walk in the parade, so that's what we did. The anticipation of the fire truck coming up the street to start the parade was almost too much for the boys, as shown in the video below...

Gearhart's parade is a good, old fashioned 4th of July parade in which more people are in than are actually watching. It does always amaze me, though - that even though I've taught in this town and lived here more than 1o years now - at least 95% of the people at the parade I've never seen before. Gearhart's population increases in the summer and especially on the 4th exponentially and most of the people at our "local" parade are not local at all. Still, though - I used to be one of those "invaders" :) and you gotta love it when your own Grandma walks out of the parade to give you candy...

After the parade is over, everybody walks down to the fire station for a free hot dog and to play on the fire trucks.
After a quick power nap on the couch for Mom and Dad, we headed over to Ronny's buddy Ryan's house for his annual 4th of July picnic. We get out so rarely anymore we see these people only a few times a year, it seems like, so it was so nice to spend time with them. Ryan has an awesome place complete with 4 wheelers for the kids to ride....

....and a huge sand pit/fire pit to create a very private bonfire. It's always the running joke that only this group would use excavators and heavy equipment to build a fire pit. I used to love going down to the beach at night on the 4th because it's so festive and stuff is going off everywhere like a war zone.... but since I had children it's too stressful. Fireworks, fires, cars, thousands of people, etc. - it's not enjoyable with little ones. So Ryan's place gives the same feel without being so worrisome. We were good, but I think Ronny's friends spent a combined total of $6,000 on fireworks, so we enjoyed a great show nonetheless.