Fantastic Fourth.

Looking back through the pictures from this weekend, they have an uber-Americana quality to them: all reds, whites, and blues; pictures of family and happy kids and parades and swimming pools and fireworks.

And any party or picture that has a cake that looks like this marks a GOOD weekend in my book. My cousin Tammie made it and it was delicious.

This is a piece of evidence marking how utterly lax in rules my parents are with their grandchildren. Really? Eating ice cream IN THE POOL? What about the one hour rule? What about eating over a plate? What about NO EATING IN THE POOL?

I love how the chocolate makes a goatee on Alec's face.


The day started off with a parade in our neighborhood, complete with fire truck and decorated bicycles. The parade ends in the cul de sac down the street from my parents' house that is blocked off and a huge picnic ensues. Hamburgers, hot dogs, chips, snowcones- REAL snow cones, loud music, tents, tables and chairs, rock climbing walls, multiple bouncy bounces, facepainting and coolers full of drinks and beer (as my dad said,"Whoo-hoo! Now you're talkin'!") and over a hundred people milling around made for a very, very nice and fun event. Which I didn't get to really enjoy because Alec had a potent (but thankfully rare) meltdown about 15 minutes after we arrived, so we walked to my parents' house and watched SpongeBob. And SpongeBob soothes everything.

My parents hosted a great family picnic at their house in the afternoon, where everyone ate and was merry and Michaela jumped in and out of the pool about a billion times.

We left from there to go to friends of ours' house about 25 minutes away- they live waaaaay up on top of a huge hill and can see the fireworks from their front yard. Actually, they are so far up they can see multiple displays of fireworks from their front yard. When things got cooking at about 9:20pm, we were watching three if not four different displays, flashes of light shooting up from trees at various angles.

I took lots of pictures of the view and the yard and since it was getting dark, lots of the images of the kids running around are blurry; they had different glowstick configurations- headbands, necklaces, bracelets- and they would move past me as I was taking the picture with the glowing things leaving a trail behind them. As a result, all my pictures have a kind of otherworldly vibe to them, smeary and dusky and beautiful. The sunset was so gorgeous there, and the views so wide open... it was breathtaking.

(Note to my brother Brian: This is on Powell Hill, across from the Roberts' old house looking towards Albany on the right horizon.)

The day was capped with a visit from the Tooth Fairy as Jenna got bonked in the mouth by her brother earlier in the day and by dinner time decided she would just yank the tooth out herself. Seriously... I would not mess with this girl. The next morning, she came jubilantly into our bedroom, showing me the two dollars and she says to me, "Guess what?? The Tooth Fairy even SIGNED MY DOLLAR!" and shows me Timothy F. Geithner's signature in the lower right hand corner of the dollar. "Look-- it says TINY FAIRY!" she shows me triumphantly.

God Bless America, indeed.