We’re at the end of a busy July 4th celebration here in the Brown household.  The picture at left is a photo Andrew took this evening of the fireworks on the National Mall as viewed from the grounds of the National Cathedral (with a bit of a time lapse).

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Andrew and Claire returned from a pilgrimage to Northern Ireland  on Friday (pictures to come in the days ahead) which meant we jumped right in to the July 4th celebration.  They had a swim meet this morning, so Andrew and Claire left with Candice bright and early while I began to put the house together following a week’s worth of painting.

One of the down sides of July 4th falling on a Saturday is that we have a swim meet and miss the annual 4th of July parade in Takoma Park.  We’ve been going for years, and love the quirky, small town sensibilities the parade provides in this unique community full of eclectic historic houses.  So I’ll post a photo to remind us of the great time we’ve had in the past – with the promise for more in the future.  If you live around Washington, consider adding the Takoma Park parade to your future July 4th plans.  Bring a lawn chair and your sense of humor.

Our neighborhood pool has a traditional 4th of July cookout and pot luck which we enjoy.  We ran into a friend we met at last year’s July 4th pool party, and spent the time catching up on our various lives.  It wasn’t long before we realized we’d spent two hours just relaxing, eating, and enjoying the company of our pool family.

Which brings us to tonight.  Picnics in tow, we met up with friends on the grounds of the Washington National Cathedral.  Hanging with the mass of humanity on the mall doesn’t interest me, but it was very civilized to join a few hundred people to get a view of the fireworks from the Washington National Cathedral.

To top it off, on the July 4th weekend the Nationals finally get a win AND National Public Radio has a great interview on Friday with the owner of the Chatham Anglers (used to be Athletics) in the Cape Cod Wooden Bat League.   Regular readers know of my love of Wooden Bat baseball, so I recommend the interview.

Ready to call it a day.  Happy Birthday USA!

More to come…

DJB