Monday, July 7, 2008

4th of July

Well, The 4th of July has come and gone and it'll be Christmas before you know it. Seems that the older I get, the faster time goes by. We went to my sister and brother-in-law's place on Lake Greenwood for the 4th. We had BBQ and grilled dogs with all the trimmings and, as usual, I ate toooooooo much. All of my siblings were there which always makes for a good time. We were missing Bee Jay and Jennifer with Zach and Zaley, Josh and Leigh, and Johnathan who had to work.

Mel and I took the boys to Academy Sports Thursday night to pick out fishing gear for Friday's trip to the lake. Tucker picked out a Batman rod and reel and Noah picked out a, you guessed it, Star Wars rod and reel with the matching Star Wars tackle box. The handle on his rod looked like a light sabre. Of course, Tucker's fishing pole had a little rubber fish on the end of the line and he reeled it in a time or two and then lost interest in fishing. Noah, on the other hand, had a real hook and a rubber worm with a cork so he could catch a real fish. After a little practice, he got to where he was casting pretty good, throwing it out 15 or 20 feet. He didn't catch any fish cause he couldn't leave it out in the water long enough for a fish to even see it, much less bite it. He'd throw it out and reel it in, throw it out and reel it in, etc., etc. but he had a good time anyway.

After supper, some of us went for a boat ride. Danny and Jane took Mollie, Jessi and Noah in their boat, which goes pretty fast. As a matter of fact, I think it only has two speeds, off and wide open
Mel , Tucker and I took the pontoon. Tucker looked pretty cool in his shades, don't you think?
We were going up the lake a piece to do some swimming but, as I mentioned, Danny's boat goes a lot faster than the pontoon so off they went and since I'm usually on the lake once a year and I'm not that familiar with it, we never found them. It probably worked for the best though cause the rocking of the pontoon put Tucker to sleep pretty quick so we just rode up the lake and back for about 30 - 45 minutes. He really NEEDED the nap.
The water was pretty rough because of all the boats and jet skis on the lake. The jet skis were running around all over the lake like musquitoes at a cookout. Of course, it's always like that on a holiday weekend at any lake. Tucker woke up when we got back to the dock and got in the water with me for a short time but he wasn't really thrilled with the swimming thing. He was a lot more content to sit on the boat and watch me swim. We got home around 10pm and people all around the house were shooting off a fortune in fireworks. They weren't the little cheap bottle rockets we used to shoot when I was a kid. They were the high dollar, professional looking, fireworks like you see at the end of a Greenville Drive game. There was a group in the Tucapau Baptist Church parking lot that was already shooting off their firewoks when we got home and they ended up around 10:30pm. Up the street in the parking lot of the Methodist Church there was a group of 10 or 12 carloads of people that were shooting their fireworks when we got home and they didn't quit until after midnight. I just can't imagine spending that much money on fireworks. It was driving my dogs slam crazy. Sam, the Dalmation, who normally can't hear it thunder because of a hearing loss due to mutiple ear infections, certainly could hear the fireworks. She almost tore up the baby gate to get into the den where we were. She's 11 years old and it seems that the older she gets the more she dislikes the fireworks.

All in all, we had a pretty good 4th of July holiday. Hope everyone reading this did too.

Next week is going to be great too. We're off to the beach on Wednesday for the annual South Carolina State Firemen's Association convention. Mollie, Jessi and the boys will be going with us. Noah loves the ocean and Tucker should be old enough this year to really enjoy it too. I'm really looking forward to a great time at the beach, not to mention all of the firetrucks and equipment that will be at the convention hall. I should have a multitude of pictures to post when we get back.

Later.......................................

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