Well another 4th of July has come and went. We spent it in the company of friends! Was just nice to have time together. On a side note I did learn tonight that candle sticks from Walmart's Minstay line are horrible as I burned a few in my chandelier and they dripped everywhere! The Jubla candlesticks from IKEA will have to be my staple use since they burn clean and are dripless.
Now I sit here watching a Golden Girls Marathon on Hallmark and reminiscing on old family gatherings this time of year. My great Aunt Mary and Uncle Mike would host a great cookout at their house very close to July 4th. A great deal of my moms side of the family would get together for this day. They stopped doing the cookouts roughly around the time I turned 21 and my Uncle Mike left us us roughly three years ago but the memories are still strong to this day and always will.
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One of the last family cookouts I remember! This was 2000!
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Uncle mike would make waterice (a frozen desert of sorts similar to italian ice). We would play volleyball together. To this day I can still hear Uncle Mike calling out "To ya to ya to ya" as he would set to pass the ball to someone. I remember one year my cousins wife dropped a baking dish filled with baked beans in the yard and for whatever reason I decided to take a picture of it. I remember one year my departed Aunt Sadie brought a gift for me that she had wanted to give me the previous year. It was a nutcracker but the memory that sticks out most was that the tape she used to wrap the present was really a roll of to and from labels. One year it rained and the family squeezed into the garage instead. When it would get dark enough all the kids would play Ghost In The Graveyard (kinda like a combination of hide and seek, tag, and flashlight tag together). Then when all was said and done and the families said their goodbyes I remember the drive home where I would look out the window of my Moms van and see tree after tree filled with lightning bugs!
