What did YOU do for the 4th of July?

What did you do for the 4th of July? I had a full day, beginning with the day before. About 11 am Mr. Scottie Dog told me that Sydney and I were going to ride on a float with him in the Ferndale 4th of July Parade. That's kind of exciting. Mr. Dog would be playing with the Humboldt Accordionairs on a 3 float entry of the Humboldt County Tea Party group. At 3 o'clock Liz asked me to make Sydney a dress for the occasion. Whew! At 5:30 Mr. Scottie Dog picked me up for dinner and I passed the dress onto Liz for hemming. We made a great team.....a 3 hour dress. What do you think of this cutie?

The Ferndale Parade was typical small town. Pony carts decorated with red, white and blue streamers, fire engines, horses, clowns and more. The weather was low overcast as usual here on the North Coast of CA until just before the parade began....then the clouds parted and the sun shown brightly. I even got some pink on my face.

We saw this guy waiting to join the parade. He was in his front yard while the floats were lining up. I think he just decided to go. Sydney loved his little dog in the front basket.

Here we are on our float...there were 10 or so accordions belting out "God Bless America," "It's a Grand Old Flag" and "This Land is Your Land." By the end Syd knew most of the words. I must admit I don't like the "rolls" that show on me....I should have sat up straighter (or lost 50 lbs!) but can you tell Mr. Scottie Dog, Sydney and I are having a good time? We are sitting on covered hay bales and leave it to MacGyver, oops, Mr. Dog, Sydney had a seat belt and everything...after all, safety first!


Just about the end of the parade, Sydney leans over to me and says, "Grandma, I LOVE riding in parades." She waved her flag and waved for about an hour straight.

When the parade had ended and our float driven back to the Fair Grounds Grandma brought out the picnic lunch. Liz and Steve found us, Grandpa bar-b-qued the chicken and we ate while Sydney ran round and round on the grass. Back home for naps. The fog rolled back in.

At 9 pm we went to Liz's and set off a box of fireworks Mr. Dog had bought. We also found some 15 year old sparklers...the kind they don't sell in CA any more and set them off with a propane torch. Sydney was frightened. She finally went inside and watched (blubbering the whole time) the show. 9:45 and we drove down to the waterfront to see the big Eureka City show. As per most years we saw some pretty red fog, green fog and occasionally the bottoms of some of the fireworks. There were so many illegal "big" fireworks going off though, below the clouds of fog so we got to see some pretty neat stuff too. Here Sydney declared she LOVED fireworks. I guess when you are 4 it's OK to be fickle.

That was our 4th of July...what did YOU do?