Yes, I am a little behind. But the cooler temps have made my upstairs office much more inhabitable, and I’m finding that I’m slowly but surely catching up with things.
This post is about the 4th of July we had down in Huntsville. I feel like it is almost a typecast 4th of July, with kids, games, food, adventure, and of course fireworks making it a representative slice of american culture.
I have to say that 4th of July has improved since my childhood. Much of this is due to having 17 cousins, Auntie Donna and Uncle Eric, and Grandma and Grandpa Stanley being part of it. We didn’t have that many people on the 4th, at least to my memory, when I was a kid.
It starts with the morning delivery of blueberries. Who can resist these faces or the plump berries?
Next was a trip to the local nature park where we all enjoyed some shade, conversations, and dirt! Mouse over for captions.
We followed that up with the hallowed BBQ dinner, with Eric sweating over the grill and everyone else pitching in to feed 25 people! The adult table before and during says it all.
The matriarch almost shares a birthday with Uncle Sam, so we always seem to include her celebration as desert, lovingly made by Rebekah.
And even though my mother will kill me for putting this into my blog, the photo of her eating her cake does represent the gusto that she approaches life with. It also helps that she is in Africa right now and can’t drive up to do me bodily harm.
When you have 25 people, including testosterone fueled young men, games involving balls tend to break out. This time it was volleyball, and the Stanley and Sorrells clan fiercely battled it out in the lovely grass volleyball court, all part of the lovely Stanley Compound©. Mouse over for captions.
We had an incredible cheering section the whole game. Sometimes they even watched us!
The end always involves fireworks, and Uncle Paul did not disappoint. When he asked for the best, this is what they gave him. Redneck, party, and fireworks are three words that just shouldn’t be put together.
In the end, nothing was hurt (well, maybe some pride) and all the sugar-addled kids eventually made it to bed. The adults? Probably made it to bed before the kids…
A Deliberate Life 