Bummer 4th of July

Quote of the Day: "If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a Nation Gone Under." -Ronald Reagan, 40th U.S. President

 The one holiday kids (and adults) look forward to in the summer is the 4^th of July. Kids start watching for those famous big tents as soon as school ends. This year, with temperatures over 100 degrees all across the U.S., July 4^th just wasn’t the celebration we are used to. Long before the day arrived, it had been cancelled. There has been a Burn Ban on for weeks so I knew that fireworks would be a “no go.” But the city posted this sign up in numerous places just to remind people not to do them. (Of course, people tried it anyway. I heard police and fire sirens all day.)

 The ban on fireworks really wasn’t a surprise with the ground so dry it is cracking and the vegetation shriveling from the ground up. My daughter saw these cracks in our yard and asked if we had an earthquake!

 

We tried to substitute the fireworks for “waterworks” (via water balloon fights. Same concept right? Instead of setting money on fire, we filled it up with water and threw it at each other!) But that didn’t work out well. We were all too hot and the kids were too afraid of being hit with a water balloon. The only part of July 4^th tradition that we were able to do was grill out. It was miserable.  With two fans and a frosty cold one by his side, my hubby was still miserable at the grill. We did use this opportunity to try out a new beer. Since we are moving to the UK, we have been looking for European beers to try so we’ll know what we are in for. The two we tried are pictured here, both are pales. The darker one is supposed to be a British pale. (Although the label clearly says it was brewed and produced in the US, it claims the original recipe is British. And a local restaurant charges an import price for it!) The lighter one is an American pale. 

 It took a lot for me to learn to like beer, period. And the only ones I’ve come to like are the light ones. After drinking only American pales for a long time, the British pale had a lot more flavor than I was used to. But I was surprised to find that I liked it! My hubby was skeptical too, but braver than me, and tried it first. He liked it as well. It might be a small step, but we are making our way through preparing for the move!