A Fourth of July post….only a few weeks after Fourth of July…

I guess I am still on “Beach Time.”

I finally finished a couple of small July 4th quilts I started a few years ago out of several patriotic fabrics in my stash.  Some fabrics I had bought, some were given to me by my sister-in-law Mary many years ago, and some were just the right colors left over from other projects. I think they turned out pretty well! I actually got to use them for the first time on Fourth of July on my chairs out in the front yard.

We hung out in our front yard in the morning and drank coffee (well… some of us drank coffee – some were already into the “spirit” of the day). We watched all the parade goers walking by to and from the actual parade a few blocks away and people stopped to say hi and we rescued a runaway dog and it was all really fun. We haven’t been at the coast for the Fourth in a few years….forgot how much fun and how much less stressful it is at the coast rather than nervously watching all the fireworks shooting everywhere on the dry high desert tinderbox of Central Oregon!

Nate and Natalie had a great time! They went to the parade and ate candy and they looked quite festive!

Nothing like spending the holiday with one of your favorite cousins!

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We have had this fire pit over at Sea Star Cottage for several years.  When we first got it we went to all kinds of trouble to carefully dig a circle out of the lawn and spread a layer of sand and place rocks around and make it all perfect because that is what we thought you were suppose to do.

This time we just threw all the blocks in the back of the truck on Fourth of July afternoon, hauled them over to the cottage, tossed them out on the lawn, and put them back together in a ring in the side yard right on top of the turf.

Ta Da!  One perfectly functional fire pit without all the hassle….Who knew?

That evening, we roasted marshmallows and did a crazy number of fireworks in the driveway, as did all the neighbors and everyone else in town.  The guys ventured down to the beach when it got really dark to watch the big fireworks but it was just too cozy in my yard by the fire so some of us stayed put….

Eventually the evening started to wind down and everyone went home and I brought in the quilts and blankets and put on my jammies while the guys “cleaned up” the fireworks remnants from off of the driveway.  This involved throwing the assorted boxes and candles and other fireworks containers into the still burning fire pit.

It seems some of those spent fireworks weren’t quite spent and still had some life left in them…

Of course, nobody thought to move the chairs away from around the fire pit when the explosions started…..

*sigh*

Oh well….

I guess it’s not Fourth of July if you don’t get to burn something up. Usually that involves hot dogs or marshmallows or fireworks though….not the furniture.

– 😉  –