Home from the beach

We are home from a few days at the beach, and enjoyed the 4th of July festitivies despite the so-so weather. Last year at this time, the kids were in swimsuits, paddling around in the little river that leads to the ocean near the house. This year we had rain, then sun, then rain and so on. We had one pretty nice day and drove up the coast to my favorite beach, where you can find beautiful rocks and sand dollars. On the actual holiday, we woke up to misty rain. Charlie put the lawn chairs out at the parade route early and we sat in them with umbrellas until about 3 minutes before the parade began when it margically stopped raining altogether.

The parade was its usual charming self, with Boy Scouts and Senior Citizens and kids on bikes. Our friends Kaz, Marcie and Alia, and Lynn and Doug sat with it and the kids all had fun waving their flags and running for the candy that was thrown into the crowds. That night we went down to the beach with Kaz, Marcie and Alia and Charlie let off some really cool fireworks along with hundreds of other people doing the same thing. Washington has very liberal fireworks laws so everyone has professional-type mortars and other things I don't know the names of but are amazingly beautiful when you sitting in the sand watching the colors exploding up and down the beach as far as you can see.

Here are a few pictures. My camera (the new one, darn it) was misbehaving, so I didn't get any of the parade or fireworks!