we had a busy, yet fun, 4th of july. it started monday when i made a flag cake. we werer going to celebrate my brothers’ birthday (which is tomorrow, btw), and, really, what’s the 4th of july without a flag cake?? joe helped by cutting strawberries and putting them on the cake for the stripes.

and the finished work . . .

before we put the stars and stripes on, we noticed a little smudge in the top right corner. it looked suspiciously like a cat paw print. we glanced at julius and aj, who were sitting on the floor, and aj was licking his lips like there’s no tomorrow. we don’t have hard evidence, but we do have our assumptions. 🙂

the next morning, joe and i met some of my coworkers around 6:45 a.m. for breakfast before heading in for the parade. our station sponsors it, so we had to be there early. there were about 80 floats in it. we had two cars, and some of our staff walked to hand out t-shirts. i sat on the toolbox in ed’s truck, waving and handing t-shirts to the walkers to giveaway. joe wimped out on being in the parade with me, so he and my family were near the parade’s start, where he was running around taking pictures of me. it was pretty cute.

after the parade, we headed to cracker barrel for lunch with my family. we had a long wait before we were seated, and an even longer wait before our food came. luckily, we had those fun little peg games at our table to occupy us.

when we were done eating, our waitress brought out the cake, and a group of employees sang happy birthday to my brothers. randy seemed to enjoy it and thanked them afterward, but ryan looked embarrassed. he probably felt the same way i would if that ever happened to me!

after lunch, joe and i went home to nap and watch some 24 (finally finished all the past seasons!). then, our friend jon came over, and we headed out to grab some food and then hit the park for the fireworks. i read the book i keep in my purse while joe and jon played bocce ball.

a little boy whose family was sitting off to the left of us came over to me and said, “the fireworks are gone! the fireworks are gone!” he was really cute and had these really concerned eyes. his parents called him over to them, but he kept coming back to me. later, he said, “the fireworks are too loud. they go boom!” while covering his ears with his hands. it was adorable.

later, some very brilliant people arrived and set up a bunch of fireworks which shot sparks off to the sides up on the grass right by their blankets. that was very intelligent. it was a fire waiting to happen.

when it began getting even darker, the boys packed up the bocce ball set, and we talked while we waited for the fireworks to start.

when we were finally able to get out of the parking lot and leave, it was off to bruster’s for ice cream before heading home to finish an episode of 24 and pass out. it was a busy but fun day.

update: joe’s right! i forgot the drunk guy story. we were driving down main street toward the park, and the traffic in our lane was stopped while the traffic in the other lane was flowing. cars in our lane started to go around a truck that was stopped in front of the railroad tracks. we thought it had broken down, but as we drove past we saw the driver’s head slumped against the window. we pulled over, as did another man, and ran down there. when joe got to the truck, the other man turned to him and said, “i thought he was dead.” apparantly, he had passed out. he was very drunk and kept slurring his words, and when we got him to pull over he parked his truck by pulling it over the curb and onto the grass. we left when some firefighters came to help and a police officer arrived, but we couldn’t get over the fact that this man was passed out in his car and no one driving by seemed to care.