Had a fun day today.  First off, we went to the beach with a bunch of friends and had a sand castle building contest.  There were some pretty elaborate structures produced.  WE went off on his own and made sand versions of both the Washington Monument and the Collisium in Rome.  The winner was a  combination sea turtle/castle.  But, the most exciting one was made by Brandon and his girlfriend, Mindy.  We couldn't figure out what he was making.  It was a big sand circle with an odd shape at the top.  We figured out it was an engagement ring when he wrote the words "Mindy, will you marry me?" in the middle of it.  Isn't that just the sweetest thing ever?  We were all happy to see her write the word "YES" in the sand under it.

After we all got sunburned at the beach (even I got pink in spots) we headed home and an hour later we dashed out again for the parade downtown.  It started raining right before the city lit off the fireworks, so, though they were beautiful, the rain made them go out  much quicker than they normally would.  The rain is also putting a damper on the regular fireworks.  I imagine everyone will light them off tomorrow night to make up for it.

Every year on the 4th of July, 2 things happen.  I get John Mellencamp's song Justice and Independence stuck in my head and our family talks about the year of the neighbor annilliator.  Friends of ours from Wisconsin absolutely LIVED for July 4th fireworks.  They spent hundreds of dollars on the things and lit them off over the lake at their house.  We'd get our lawnchairs out and watch the show.  I'm not a big fan of fireworks, last night I was showing kids pictures of hands with the fingers blown off because of fireworks, hoping they'd reconsider the whole exploding thing.  But, fireworks are guy things and I think they make them feel manly or something.  I just don't get it.  Anyway, one year we were watching the equivilent of a week's pay getting blown up in our friend's backyard when one of the launchers fell over and shot fireworks right into the neighbors yard where they were having a party.  We laugh about it now, but when it happened, everyone fell pretty bad.  One lady even got burned a bit.  It did serve one purpose though, they cut back on the fireworks in the future and were much more careful about shooting the stupid things off.  It also made the neighbors move their  party inside.