Independence Day

Now that it has gotten hot out, the pool is just right for us spoiled Zonies: bath water. We packed the car and high tailed it over to Grams' house for the 4th to swim and eat.

We all swam. Justin and Emma had diving contests, leaving Keith, Grams and I to be the judges. Keith was the Russian judge, putting out scores below 5. Grams and I were a little more gracious but no 10's were given this day. Probably because the contest didn't go on too long - I mean if you start out giving 10's right away, you can't go any higher as the dives get better.

Emma helped with pictures, taking the last two pictures. Its nice that I can actually have pictures of myself on my own blog and in my own photo album.

Grams and Titus

I know that I said it was getting hot, but really, it was only 103. Not too terribly hot. We all know that it'll get worse.

Kevin and Bindi

Kevin dropped by while we were grillin'. He was telling us about a great place to vacation in Belize. It sounded wonderful... but any vacation sounds wonderful right now since we typically don't vacation in the summer time since that is Keith's busiest time (being an air conditioning repair man and all).

Keith is the master chef in our family. I have to follow a recipe if I want things to turn out right (and even then, it only ups the odds). Keith can just cook or season how he thinks is appropriate and it tastes wonderful. We had steak, chicken, grilled zucchini, grillin beans, fruit, and garlic bread and it was all just fabulous.

And here's the obligatory cloud shot. Apparently, my obsession with clouds was not limited to last summer.

We usually watch fireworks from a greenbelt just 5 minutes and less than a mile from the house. But, Glendale canceled its fireworks display this year because of budgetary concerns (and I'm glad that they did), and all of the other fireworks displays were on the other side of town.

Now, if you've been reading for a while, you'll know that when I bought my camera, I specifically wanted a fireworks mode (just like Tiffany had). So, I was very disappointed when I knew that I wasn't going to get to take any pictures of fireworks this year.

Emma and I drove home in a separate car and we saw a fireworks display that wasn't advertised in the paper. We found a place to park on a high hill to watch what we could. We were still far away and it made taking pictures hard, but I did get to take pictures of fireworks just like I wanted.

Many of the pictures were mostly black since the fireworks were too far away and it was hard to judge when the fireworks were going to explode. But I caught the finale in this shot. I look forward to next year, where I'll be more prepared: I'll have a tripod with me and, hopefully, we'll be much closer.

Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have.
~ Harry Emerson Fosdick