Celebrating My Independance.

Little Man and I rolled out of bed about 8:40 Friday morning and met Venus and ET at Highland Park Village to watch the July 4th parade that Park Cities puts on. It's about 50% businesses and about 50% residents.

Kids decorate their bikes and ride in the parade. Families decorate their trucks/cars. A couple were pulling flat-bed trailers that they had decorated. This is a neighborhood parade - but big - with about 100 participants. The best commercial float was a truck from Central Market and they were handing off baby watermelons. Whoo-Hoo!

Almost all of the entries throw candy. At first, the boys were scrambling for every piece of anything anyone threw. About 20 minutes into it, they started getting a lot pickier. A float would throw candy at them and they'd say, "Aw, it's just peppermints." And leave them in the street for some smaller novice to pick up. They started honing in on the good stuff: Snickers, Three Musketeers, Twizzlers.

And the merchandise! Beach balls, Styrofoam rocket launchers, T-shirts, Mardi Gras beads, etc. It went on for about an hour. By the end of the parade, both Little Man and ET had about a 5 lb. tote bag full of candy and other crap.

We went home to go through the booty and have some breakfast. Around 12:30, we went over to Cenote and Venus' for the day to swim and BBQ. Randy smoked a pork butt that was divine.

Cenote smoked a brisket. Angie brought potato salad, Lisa brought Coleslaw, Venus made deviled eggs. Me? I brought cupcakes! About 9:30 pm we took the kids back up to Highland Park Village Shopping Center. The Dallas Country Club (right across the street) had a fireworks show that we watched from the parking lot.

The kids were wiped out. After that the Moms took the kids home to bed. The Dads stayed and played poker and smoked cigars. I don't even know what time Randy got home because I was crashed! Great holiday . . . and I still have two more days of leisure! Yea!!

Randy and Nathan rolled the kids up in the rafts like a burrito and then would pick them up and launch them across the pool like a bullet. The kids thought it was hilarious.

Know what this is? This is the inside of my belly-button that got sunburned because I just stroked sunscreen on over my stomach and didn't pay attention to the details! It looked so funny I had to take a picture. I crack myself up.

Cannonball Contest