My Favorite Holiday!!!

Just home from our weekend at the beach. Snapped this shot of the boys with their first ever sparklers. Finn was not too sure about holding a flaming stick that was shooting sparks so just to be safe he never moved a muscle. Leo got the hang of it toward the end.

I love it when the 4th falls on a Sunday because it guarantees TWO nights of mayhem on the lagoon. So fun. Our weekend was a fantastic whirlwind of junk food, pop-its, beach fun, fruit stands, fresh cherries, boat rides, bonfires, apple pie, and potato salad, s'mores, did I mention junk food? It couldn't have been more fun. I love the little field trips that go along with a weekend at the beach, this time our big adventure was a trip to Lake Kathryn for a bit of classic Key Pen people watching and a visit to the safe n' sane fireworks stand. Lake Kathryn...it sounds like a pretty place doesn't it? For non-natives that might read this, it might help to know that it is actually a little strip mall that consists of a market, a drug store, maybe a hardware store, and more recently a burger king. The burger king kind of casts a weird shadow over the nostalgia of Lake Kathryn, but if you stand with your back to it you can totally pretend it is not there. Which I did. I suppose my favorite part of the weekend was Saturday night, the house directly across the lagoon had their annual huge party. They have a band that goes nuts covering a lot of Rolling Stones. It is hard to tell how many people are actually at this party but with the amps and the echos, it sounds like you are at a concert at the gorge. So with that as the background, another house down the shore has a Cheney Stadium size fireworks display. I love it that human beings had the curiosity and imagination to invent fireworks. Colorful, flaming, explosions that inspire us to giggle and whoop and embrace pyromaniacy.

And now that we are home, there is much to do in the garden, more neighborhood summer camp this week, one last episode of Mad Men (how I have loved bingeing on 3 straight seasons, and how I waited this long to discover it is beyond me!). My birthday week has started, and naturally this is a wonderful excuse to be partying all week long. I succeeded in saying no to consumerism the entire month of june, and I am pledging to go for another month, with the exception two early birthday gifts to myself with Ben's money. I thought about sandals all month long in June, and decided that flip flops just might be one of the aggravators of my sciatic pain, so new sandals were a necessity. But that is seriously it, the Just Say No pledge has truly been liberating, the t-shirts at target are never that great after you wash them anyway, and it is a great excuse to buy less CRAP, and then I can guiltlessly spend money on other more awesome items every so often, like early b-day gift number 2...Vampire Weekend tickets for the show at Marymoor Park in August, can't wait!!! I am borderline obsessed. I think I'll go turn it on right now.