Celebrate!! & Remember

CELEBRATE

"It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more." —John Adams

This evening we are headed out to watch the fireworks with the Patnaudes, at our usual spot. We've been doing this for a number of years. We get a spot on the beach and lined right up where we can see the fireworks over the water. It gives us a great opportunity to catch up and have an enjoyable visit with one another. I hope that the rest of the family will be able to join us, but with Faith being so young and the fireworks beginning so late I doubt that they will be able to make it. As for Walt, he has probably been up early working and will need to get his rest for tomorrow.

Dean stayed with the chairs to stake out our space. While waiting for the Patnaude's to catch up with us. We weren't sure there for a while if the thunderstorm was going to "rain" out the fireworks, but it skimmed around our location. It did bring in a much needed cooling down.

While Dean hung out with the chairs I went off in search of something/someone to take photos of. Much to my delight I ran across a mother duck with her three ducklings.

After much adjusting and changing of position, I was able to get this one shot of the four of them together and the second close up of two of the ducklings. They looks so soft and fluffy.

Then there was Sean the masterful fisherman. He was all over the dock. Using just a fishing line, hook and bread for bait he kept pulling in these small fish. He was on the catch and release program. I believe that he impressed several of the people on the dock with the fact that he was able to even catch anything with his limited supplies.

Marion & Dale with the girls in tow arrived about 45 minutes before the big show, which gave us the opportunity to catch up with all the goings on of the past few months. So much to catch up on and so little time.

The fireworks started promptly at 9 pm, we had several new variations which we gave names such as the butterfly (it had the appearance of white wings with a red body), chicken feet (this is one of Marion's favorites - it actually looked like chicken tracks), then there were the curly cues (imagine white sprial fries raining down); there was one new one which used several colors that aren't normally put together. It was quite festive. The finale was terrific as always. So end the ninth year of our viewing fireworks together. Next year we'll have to make them a bit more special.

REMEMBER

"The day of our nation's birth in that little hall in Philadelphia, [was] a day on which debate had raged for hours. The men gathered there were honorable men hard-pressed by a king who had flouted the very laws they were willing to obey. Even so, to sign the Declaration of Independence was such an irretrievable act that the walls resounded with the words 'treason, the gallows, the headsman's axe,' and the issue remained in doubt. [On that day] 56 men, a little band so unique we have never seen their like since, had pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. Some gave their lives in the war that followed, most gave their fortunes, and all preserved their sacred honor... In recent years, however, I've come to think of that day as more than just the birthday of a nation. It also commemorates the only true philosophical revolution in all history. Oh, there have been revolutions before and since ours. But those revolutions simply exchanged one set of rules for another. Ours was a revolution that changed the very concept of government. Let the Fourth of July always be a reminder that here in this land, for the first time, it was decided that man is born with certain God-given rights; that government is only a convenience created and managed by the people, with no powers of its own except those voluntarily granted to it by the people. We sometimes forget that great truth, and we never should." —Ronald Reagan [PatriotPost July 3, 2006 Patriot No. 06-27]