Our 4th of July Celebration

Well , we went back to my childhood for the 4th of Juy this year. We were of course still in Cascade. When we decided to work on my grandma's house, I told John we had to be there for the 4th of July. They start the day with a Buckaroo Breakfast... needless to say we didn't make that. It is followed by a parade on the main road through town (which is a state highway). They shut down the highway and thousands of people come from all over and line the streets for the parade. It is amazing to see this quite town bursting with energy all of a sudden! The population of Cascade grows 10 times bigger for the 4th of July celebrations. We sat near the end of the parade route, in the shade of a nice pine tree. We also had the company of a little dachsaund puppy named Kay Dee. She could smell Tuffy and was so cute! At the end of every parade, the Fire trucks drive by and shoot water at the crowd. It sure cools things down a lot! Then it was back to the house for more painting, tearing our carpet, and cleaning since we were going home the next day. At 9:00 we headed out to find a place to watch fireworks. Cascade is known for their fireworks that they shoot over the lake. It is truly an amazing sight! It was one memory that I've had since I was little, and was so excited to share it with John. We went and sat on the golf course, and had a perfect spot.... after driving around for 20 minutes trying to decide where to go. We were still quite earl so we sat there and watched the sun disappear behind the mountains making the sky all sorts of beautiful colors. It was so relaxing to just sit there in the beauty of it, and I finally got cold (I had been terribly hot all day long!) Luckily I had my big coat in the car. It has two pieces and John ended up getting cold too and taking one of them from me. Of course, since we were getting up early to head home John wanted to not sit in traffic, so about 10 minutes into the fireworks we left, we beat all of the traffic and could see the fireworks from Grandma's house anyway. We were super glad we left early when 45 minutes later there was a traffic jam in front of the house of people trying to get out of town and we were already in bed! Here are some pictures of our celebration... and yes I know we don't look festive, but most of our clothes were covered in paint!