The Fourth

And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,

Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.

Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

We had quite a weekend celebrating our nation's independence and summer. 

Thursday evening after a quick dinner of waffles (we love waffles around here so it was a great way to kick off a weekend of celebration) we drove to Sterling to attend a community theater production that my friend Delores was in.  The musical was The Pajama Game and we loved it.  We were very impressed with the caliber of production that his community theater presented-- a wonderful cast, great sets and costumes, live music, etc.  We had no idea what the play was going to be about.  It was a musical comedy set in the 1950s about a wage dispute at a pajama factory between the workers' union and factory management.  This was another great "patron of the arts" event for us.
After the play we drove on to my parent's home for the weekend.  Friday morning my mom put us to work 'summerizing' the backyard (in this context summerizing is preparing for the act of enjoying summer not briefly covering the main points of a topic).  We hung the hammock, grabbed the lawn chairs, filled the water blob and tried to patch the leaks with duct tape, hauled concrete blocks for the garden, etc.  Arthur was then able to escape to the basement with a good book-- his favorite activity on visits--and I was beckoned to the kitchen to prepare food for the masses.  That evening my brothers and their families arrive.  After dinner we all headed downtown to get some fireworks for the 4th.  My family has never had many fireworks and I was amazed when my father even sent us with some money to make these purchases.  Fireworks were something that had very limited funding in the family budget growing up.  I figured that now that we are adults and gainfully employed we would be on our own with this.  He must be getting soft as we grow up.  Our "downtown" area includes a square with a fountain.  Our niece thought this was great fun since she could give her toy horse a drink.  She then discovered that she could drop the horse into the fountain and good ole Uncle Arthur would fish it out.  The rest of the evening consisted of back porch sitting enjoying the beautiful weather.  

Saturday morning included a waffle bar  with blueberries, strawberries, and whipped cream for breakfast (hurray for waffles).  The young bucks of the family then headed out to slaughter a sheep that was going to be roasted for dinner.  This is the second year that my brother Arnold has decided to do a lamb roast for 4th of July.  The girls stayed home and whipped up several pints of  raspberry rhubarb jam and a few pies for the festivities.  While making the pies, our niece was sitting at the table playing with play-do when all of a sudden she tossed her ball of play-do with a large splatter into the middle of the cherry pie.  It certainly surprised my mom.

The afternoon fun was loading everyone up with several floaties and our canoe to head to the sand pit.  We are slightly challenged when it comes to finding larger bodies of water in this portion of the state.  The sand pit is an old sand pit that is now a fairly large cattle pond where we go for an afternoon at the beach.  I spent some time lounging on a floatie--almost asleep even though I had already taken two naps that day.  The guys spent over and hour running down a hill of sand into the pond and swimming to see who could be the first to reach a football.  My dad and I took a spin around the pond in the canoe.  On the backside of the island the cattle herd had cautiously made its way to the bank, curious about all the commotion that had invaded their peaceful pasture.  They then became even more brave and venture around to the beach area where everyone was playing.  They carefully kept a sand hill between them and the strangers in swimming suits but peaked over just enough to see the eyes and ears of 30 head of cattle puzzling over our activities.

After cleaning up from all the sand and pond water we made the trip over to Grandma's house for a family get-together with several cousins, aunts, and uncles on my dad's side of the family.  We had dinner, including the roasted lamb, and a plethora of desserts-- two types of homemade ice cream, two varieties of pie, and a rhubarb crisp.  It was another glorious evening for front porch sitting.  My parents have recently put in a few days of work doing some repairs and painting the porch for the sole purpose fo our family's favorite group activity, 'porch sittin'.  Arthur was very content to discuss tax laws, the reasons for the Civil War, and the FDA most of the evening on the porch.  I moved on to the group setting off fireworks in the driveway.  It think it was one of the best fireworks displays put on at our family gatherings.  We also had a prime location to watch all the fireworks in town and surrounding countryside about a mile away over the field which offered a clear view minus the irrigation system.  The evening came to a close with roasting a few marshmallows over the coals left from the lamb roast.  I'm not one to toot my own horn about my cooking, but I think I've got some skills when it comes to marshmallow toasting.
Sunday morning the family rose for breakfast before church.  Before we headed home we had to pack up several coolers full of meat.  My parents had just ordered half a side of beef so we put in our order for a 1/4 of beef.  (This means we have plenty of ground beef and won't have to eat lentil tacos for awhile.)  My husband has never been more excited to unload the car after a trip-- it sure helps when most of the contents is meat.  We celebrated our 2 year anniversary (can anyone else believe it's been 2 years?) with t-bone steaks for dinner and the traditional cherry cheesecake sans cherries.  Omnia Vincit Amor.