Fourth of July 2008

It's been awhile since I've posted anything because each time I've tried to sign on to the blog and upload photos the whole internet server goes crazy and logs me out, cuts me off, deletes everything, etc, etc. I've gotten so frustrated that I just gave up for awhile and stopped trying. So here I go again (using a different search engine) and it looks like it's working!

Happy Fourth of July - one month late! The week before the 4th we had debated what to do for the holiday weekend - go to the beach, stay at home, etc, etc. We decided to do both. We stayed in the Palisades for the 4th of July and attended the parade which we'd heard a lot about. The above photo is the last of the four skydivers who opened the parade. They jumped out of plane above the "Village" area of the Palisades and then guided themselves down for landing at the intersection of Sunset Blvd and Swarthmore Ave - quite amazing. The last diver, above, is Gregory Peck's (from "To Kill a Mockingbird") son and he unfurled the American flag as he floated down.
I was especially excited to celebrate the 4th of July this year in the States; in the last 9 years I have only had two other 4th of July's in the US. I even drove down to Sunset Blvd at 7:30am to put our chairs out to make sure we would have prime viewing of the parade. OK, so that was a bit overkill, but at least we knew we didn't have to try and squeeze in somewhere. I had also been told by several people that the parade started at 1pm and that we should get there early as it was a big party atmosphere, etc, etc. So we packed a picnic lunch intending on "partying" with the the rest of the town - only to go down there at 11am and find that NO ONE was there yet and the parade didn't start until 2! So we took a big walk around, had some lunch and then got seated for the big parade.

Here is our newest little half-American. John was dressed in his new red, white and blue outfit and actually kept his hat on for most of the day. He had a great time sitting on our laps and watching everything go by. He kicked his feet whenever a band went by, loved watching all the dogs and wasn't even afraid of the clown that came up to him and gave him a pat on the head.

Sydney thought everything was great (except for the clown). It was your typical "small town" American parade whereby all the local businesses, social groups, churches, and townsfolk were a part of it. One of our favourite displays was the "Optimists Club" - it was about 75 elderly men wearing white button down shirts and white boxer shorts, sports socks pulled up and tennis shoes. We weren't quite sure what the point was, but they were really cute. The Grand Marshall was Marian Ross who played Mrs Cunningham in "Happy Days". Carl Lewis, 5-time gold medal Olympian, also rode in a car and got probably the most applause of the day.


We had a good time and we're glad that we stayed home to attend the parade. That evening I stood in our backyard and watched the Palisades fireworks go off over the mountain - they were beautiful. The finale was an enormous amount of only red, white and blue fireworks - love it!