Fourth of July

So the fourth of July is always a big deal at our house. For one thing, I like to think of myself as a Patriotic American, and secondly, I'm a bit of a pyro at heart. I mean, really, who doesn't love a good firework show? The past few years it had become a Hodnett family tradition to go to Lake Tahoe and watch the spectacular show they do on the beach. This year, in our current situation, we were going to skip the vacation, but Brian and I got engaged in Tahoe watching fireworks 5 years ago, so we decided a couple days before we were going to make a day of it.
We convinced my parents to come along and EARLY on the 4th we headed up the mountain. We got there at 7am, and it wasn't too soon!! There were already people with their shade tents and rope and lawn chairs, with their spots staked out all along the beach. (this is new to us, we usually casually headed to a private beach the hotel we stayed at had in the early afternoon and still got front row seats.)
Well, we found a great spot and set up shop for the day. The fireworks didn't start until 9:45pm so we had a couple of hours to kill in between. We brought games and snacks and stuff to keep us busy, but can I tell you the most entertaining thing to do was people watch! Especially as it got closer and closer to the fireworks, people would try and squeeze their way toward the shoreline in front of others who had been there 15 hours before them!! At one point I had a guy LITERALLY leaning against my chair. We just had to laugh about it because at that point we were so exhausted it would have made us too grumpy to enjoy the fireworks...which by the way, were great.
They choreograph them to music that broadcasts on a radio station, but sadly, being a couple miles away from the barge this year, we kinda lost the effect of the sound of the blast in your gut and light that fills the whole sky. Next year, we'll book the hotel.


Our sweet set up. You can tell we were staking our claim because our stuff exploded everywhere! Next time...rope, so people can't walk over everything! Some were even so rude they walked right through our shade tent. Hello people!!


Beautiful Lake Tahoe


I spy with my little eye...I spy a grandpa with a kayak...in the picture above...do you see him!? (pardon the nakedness strewn along the beach)


We thought the kayak would be fun for the day...but sadly, it was super choppy. Pops even flipped once and didn't realize he lost a hydrodrive (a set of foot pedals.) After a couple days of sweeping the lake, lots of prayers and a little miracle later, some guy at the boat rental happened to pick them up wondering what it was and was working the same day Pops stopped in to ask about it. HF even cares about kayak pedals.


The scene on the beach at about 2pm. By 7 the hill in the previous pictures was covered with blankets and people and by 8:30 you could hardly see the sand.