The 4th of July is my favorite holiday and for the past few years we've been going over to Paul and Peggy's house on Clear Lake near Eatonville. Before that, we went to my grandparent's house up until they ran out of energy. My best memories of my favorite holiday were at my grandparents house. This God Damn Covid pandemic has taught us all to slow down and reflect this year. I have done a lot of reflecting, yard work and going through and organizing stuff. I was so ready for it to end so we could go back to our lives. I really miss traveling...like to the core of my being. I was starting to get Covid fatigue.
This year we had planned on going to Paul and Peggy's and found out they were going to host it again even with the pandemic going on. I figure we could still social distance because we will be outside enjoying the holiday. Then Bev got a hold of me and told me that it was going to be canceled because Peggy got sick (not from Covid). She was tired, run down and needed rest. That news prompted me to create my own 4th of July party at our house last minute. I am glad I have that skill; that I can spontaneously plan gatherings that turn out magnificent.
I got a hold of everyone, told them what the plan was, who was bringing what and the time to come over. Everyone was game. We had a plan and now I had to get everything ready in the next three days. I had the Thursday off because of our first furlough day and then we had Friday off for the 4th of July this year so I had some time to get stuff done.
I started off with mowing the front and back lawn on Tuesday after work. There is just something satisfying after you mow the lawn. The yard just looks so good and you've accomplished something you can see. Ben came home after work and disc golf with Josh and I asked him to use the leaf blower to get rid of the excess grass clippings, fir needles and other debris off of the driveway and the street next to our yard. Our front yard looked immaculate.
For my first of several furlough days, I slept in and snuggled with my cat and then ate a quick breakfast and did some shopping around Lacey.
First, I went to Kohl's because Erika had told me that they were having a pretty good sale. I've never shopped at Kohl's before and it reminded me of Sears and JC Penny's. I wandered around for a bit and then went upstairs to check out the baby stuff. My friends Nick and Nicky just had their second kid, a girl, and I wanted to send them a gift since I missed the baby shower in May. After some decision making, I found the perfect little outfit with avocados on it. When I think of avocados I think of that one drunken night in the Chief Joe apartments at WSU. Nickey was in the kitchen eating avocados with a spoon and literally got it everywhere. She said they were her "go to" drunk food. I knew she would appreciate the outfit. I also bought one of those bottle outfits they were selling in the seasonal aisle. I really liked the Hawaiian outfit so I bought it for Figgy, my elf on the shelf.
I went over to Fred Meyer to get a few things. I ended up finding a birthday present for mom and bought some Drop Top for this weekend.
Then I grabbed the newest cache in the area on the Woodland Trail by Erika's apartment, it was called Why Knot (GC8VDQJ) which was tucked into one of the old wooden posts between the trail and Pacific Avenue. I kinda had to be sneaky because the traffic could totally see me before entering the roundabout. Ben had training that evening and then I found out Grammie's sister, Mavis, passed away. She was in her 90's.
The next day, I went shopping with mom to get a few things for Saturday's party. She brought over small flags I put in a bunch of my flower pots to make the front yard more festive. We went to a few stores to get the stuff we needed and then she dropped me off at home. I spent the rest of the day cleaning the house, making potato salad and the US shaped Funfetti cake.
The next morning we slept in and then I got a phone call from Doug asking me if I wanted to go with him and Jenn to go get fireworks. I said sure and asked when he was going to come get me. He said soon. We made McMuffins and then started putting stuff away since we were going to have people over and I kinda wanted it to look nice. We cleaned the guest bathroom and did some vacuuming.
Doug and Jenn called to let me know they were on their way so I went and put some shorts and a different sweatshirt, got my mask, phone and my money and jumped into their car. We went to the Rez first. There wasn't much to pick from this year which was disappointing and we had to stand in some long lines. Any other year and there would be plenty on the 4th but Covid is keeping people at their house this year so more people are doing their own firework shows. We did manage to find some of the stuff we wanted including the infamous tanks for tank wars. We brought home some cakes and fountains but couldn't find any sparklers.
We drove into Hawks Prairie to see if we could find some little stuff including Roman candles, smoke bombs and sparklers at two discount firework stands near Winco. The first one was out of fireworks but the other one still had some.
Again, we had to stand in line and wait our turn. We didn't buy any mortars because I wasn't sure what the rules in our neighborhood would be so we stuck with the little fireworks. Overall, between the three of us, we spend around $300 in fireworks. I still had some previous fireworks from past 4ths and Dad gave me some fireworks he found in Grammie and Grandpa's garage.
Doug and Jenn dropped me off at my house and I started getting the rest of the house and yard ready. We set up the tables and chairs, the lawn chairs and fire pit in the front yard. Earlier that day, Dad brought over the plywood from Grammie and Grandpa's house so we didn't ruin the cul-de-sac.
I had Ben start making the burgers around 4:00 while I got everything else we were responsible for (corn, chips, beans, potato salad, s'mores fixin') together and set it out on the dining room table. When everyone else arrived, Doug brought ribs in the crock pot, Grandma brought some strawberries, Mom and Dad brought watermelon, the buns, tomatoes, newspaper and logs (for the fire pit), Trish and Amy found angel food cake, strawberries and whipped cream, Ed brought more chips, Erika and Zach made ceviche and Josh, Heather and Lily brought mashed potatoes and gravy (which I thought was an unusual thing to bring for a hamburger BBQ). Food is food I guess.
Everyone came over between 4 and 5 but Josh misunderstood and he and his posse were late. Heather yelled at him. We ate LOTS of food. While we waited for it to get dark we sat out in the front yard and played marbles, Hammerslagen and visited.
We had a couple tank wars and did some daytime fireworks. The neighbor kids watched us from the cul-de-sac and you could tell they wanted to be a part of it.
As it got darker, we started doing the more colorful ones including the fountains and some of the cakes. We tried to pace ourselves because we still had a couple of hours to go.
Once it did get dark, we put everything away and arranged the lawn chairs towards the cul-de-sac and the show began. Doug, Ben, Jenn and I basically were the ones lighting the fireworks. Lily got in on the action as well for some of them. Some of the fireworks Dad brought over from Grammie and Grandpa's house contained a box of mortar's. We took full advantage of that after we found out the neighbors from all sides of us were blowing up crazier fireworks than we were. Our neighbor even drove up and said, "if I would have known we could do fireworks in our yard I would have done some in mine!" We told him that we had no idea so we did it anyway. Not one cop came by to stop us either. I figured cops trying to stop everyone would probably be pointless anyway.
We had a good time and even had one of our firework cake's try to kill us. We thanked everyone for coming out and enjoying our unconventional thrown-together-at-the-last-minute 4th of July. We put away the tables and chairs and decided to do the rest tomorrow afternoon. That included cleaning up the cul-de-sac so we weren't those neighbors, getting the plywood ready for Dad to come pick up and putting away the rest of the stuff in the front yard.
Mom had promised the neighbor kids the rest of the tanks around noon the next day as well. They were promptly on time so we lit some punks for them and they played with the tanks on the plywood as we cleaned up the rest of the yard. I hope by next summer we can go back to our normal lives. This God Damn Covid sucks!
Next Adventure: A Dupont Adventure: The Sequalitchew Creek Trail
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