Independence Day.

Happy Fourth of July!

I'm going to start this post out by letting you all know that no one died or was injured in the making of our crazy night last night. At least no one we know.

Yesterday I started off the day by going down to the fire hall to be my dad's model to show off the new ice rescue suit. I got to meet some of the people who live on Mullett Lake, ya know the ones who don't actually live there but instead spend their summers in their "cottages" which are bigger than any normal person's house. So I dressed up in the suit and walked in during dad's talk so he could show off the new equipment. He also announced to them that I would be joining the department. =) Afterward, quite a few people came up and talked to me about it and then one lady brought her daughter and grandchildren down to see the fire trucks. The kids were so cute. The cutest thing ever was when the little one (probably 3 or 4) grabbed my coat and said "Mrs. Firefighter Lady, can I get in this truck?" It was so adorable. And of course I said yes.

After the kids left, Dad started packing stuff up and said he didn't need my help so I went back to the house to finish my laundry and painting before I left to go home. When dad got back from the station he started helping me paint. Then we ran out of paint so I went into town, in my painting clothes, well I put a shirt on, and got more. While I was there Katie called me to make sure that I was coming back for the BBQ and of course, I was. And when I was talking to her I was making fun of her for eating veggie hot dogs and the paint guy started making fun of it too. He said "what is it, grass wrapped in edible plastic?" It made me laugh so hard.

When I got home Dad had most of the ceiling painted, he finished that and I did the second coat on the walls. It looks really good, I was so sore though. I have calluses on my hands from it. But I'm rather proud that I got it all done in less than 24 hours. I finished my laundry and packed up for my last trip to my apartment. Ever. =( It makes me so sad...

The drive back was rather uneventful. I narrowly escaped being stopped by the cops. I was driving a little over the speed limit, and I came up on a guy in the passing lane going like 65 because there was a guy in the other lane going like 64. UGH. And while I'm bitching about this in my head I see a cop and I think ok, maybe this is a good thing that I got stuck behind slow and slower. And then the cop whips around in the median and pulls over the guy that I had just passed. If he would have been 2 minutes faster I would have received a nice Independence Day ticket. And yes, I slowed down after that.

I pull into 409 , that's where our barbecue, and I get ambushed in my car with water balloons. The girls didn't realize the point of water balloons is to get people, not their cars, wet. Silly girls. We ate, talked and threw water balloons at more people. Then we waited FOREVER for Jake to get there to go get our spots for fireworks. We changed our location for firework watching three times but finally ended up at East Hall (the same spot we went to watch the sun rise a week or so ago).

We hang out and watch the fireworks and listen to the music that people were playing there. Then most of our group left and Ben, Anja, Katie and I stuck around because there were still fireworks going off along the horizon. We enjoyed watching the crazy people up there. One guy was lighting fire crackers and throwing them, and he had one go off in his hand. Another guy was twirling fire sticks (which was rather amazing and he didn't do anything stupid). And one guy who seriously does have mental issues came up with bottle rockets and was lighting them off in his hand and letting them go, well for those of you who don't know, bottle rockets backfire. These ones happened to backfire right into the crowd. Ah, crazies. Then he tried lighting a mortar but it didn't go off. So he left. Then he came back with more bottle rockets but was throwing them off the hill this time, worked better. Less scary. Then he decided to light another mortar. And he doesn't have a tube. So this blew up all over the crowd, luckily we were sitting at the opposite end of the steps. But that was about the end of our time at East Hall. As Anja put it "the longer we stay here the closer we get to death."

On our way back Katie was telling us that Burger King now has veggie burgers. So we decided to go to BK. Then we went back to 409 and ate them outside and Krissi and Tony joined us. We were watching the stars and eating and we got the brilliant idea to go to the park and lay out and watch the stars. Krissi, Tony, Katie and I went then Jake joined us later. Krissi and Tony left and the three of us laid out and watched them until like 4. Then we came back to my place and went to bed. What a long and exciting day to come back home!

Here are the pictures:

Day 104:
all of the people that I went to East Hall with.

Day 104:
the ice rescue outfit.

♥ Sara

There are so many excellent Independece Day quotes out there, but after the night we had I found this one to be most appropriate:

"A statistician made a few calculations and discovered that since the birth of our nation more lives had been lost in celebrating independence than in winning it."
-Curtis Billings