Red, White, and Blast Furnace

The almost-100-degree heat continued today, but it was cool enough outside at 8:00 this morning for Evelyn and me to enjoy our breakfast on the deck, looking over the yard and my little flower pot garden. It was quiet, there was an occasional wisp of breeze, and we pulled our chairs into some shade from the morning sun, created by our trees and the neighbor's roof line. It as a nice way to start the holiday.

This was our view as we ate our breakfast this morning on the deck.

The day felt a lot like a Saturday: odd jobs in the yard, a run to the grocery store, bringing the check book up to date. perusing Facebook. I did a lot of hauling the hose to water trees and bushes.

I think the nicest part of the day was receiving a call from Nettie Dunlap, my cousin John's wife, who called to ask all about our wedding and to tell me how very sorry she was that they didn't get to make it. They were planning to come till the last minute, when a power outage caused them to need to stay home to take care of John's mom, my Aunt Louise. It was fun reliving the wedding with her and catching up on their lives. I told her we'd invite them for dinner when we get our video and pictures of the big day.

And the other nicest part of the day was a phone call from Jim Pierson who wanted to know all about the wedding, too. More reliving, more repeating my pride at how special Jennifer and Matt (and Geoff and Lisa) had made the ceremony and the reception. 

This evening Bill and Verna Weber and Terry and Shirley Wuske came for hamburgers on the grill. We heated up the baked potato appetizers left over from the wedding and had ice cream sundaes for dessert. Lots of laughter, a little more reminiscing about the wedding, quite a bit of catching up on Webers' and Wuskes' latest family developments (moving Verna's mom; Jonathan's moving to California!).

They left after 10:00, with the sounds of fireworks all around us, but the neighbors didn't come through with the displays we've seen in previous years. Mostly all we had were kabooms in the distance. But I know there will be other opportunities for fireworks before the summer is over!