Happy Birthday, America!

Hope yours was wonderful.

This year, our first 4th in the new house, we decided we wouldn't do anything special. We'd just sit at home and see what the neighborhood had going on. Not including all the illegal fireworks around us, the neighborhood didn't have much. As I mentioned before, the court was filled with old timers whose kids had all left the nest. Only the neighbors directly on our left had any fireworks going. And I think that was only because their grandkids were visiting.

At the last minute, we decided to run up the road to purchase sparklers. At least that would give poor Abby something to do.


And, of course, they were "out" of sparklers, so I had to buy a pack that had sparklers in them. Whatever. I wound up spending $15. Not a big deal. The real joke was what I got for 15 dollars.

We sat outside in the front yard. Abby was all excited to start. But as our pathetic display wore on, we noted Abby running more and more often to the street to watch the neighbor's fireworks. I couldn't blame her.


But we knew we hit rock bottom when, while watching the neighbor's, she exclaimed loud enough for everyone to hear, "Now THAT'S a real firework!"


Ouch.