To sum up: July 3rd

This was such an amazing holiday weekend--stuffed with memorable moments. I'm not sure that I'm recovered, really. For now, I will try to give you an impression of Thursday. Tomorrow, Obama's visit.

Thursday was July 3rd, the day that Butte celebrates Independence Day with our big town firework display over the "Big M". Butte is a firework-crazed town: nearly everybody shoots off their own display, big pro-size rockets exploding all over town, every night, for days on end. Usually on the 3rd my parents, hubby, Child and I head over to a friend's house. We feast, then about 10:30 we pull the lawn chairs out into the alley and watch the Big Show, just up the street. All the neighbor's fireworks stop when the Big Show starts--the whole town pauses during the Big Show--then start up again about 5 minutes after it's over.

This July 3rd our friends were out of town, so we had a feast at my parent's house instead, eyeing the thunderclouds the whole time. We're fairly new-ish here, so we didn't know what would happen if a full-fledged summer storm hit at the same time as the Big Show.

It did. They do it anyway.

We drove up to a hilltop park in the pouring rain, with lightning jagged all around us, and thunder rolling. We parked our two cars next to each other, and about 30 other cars, facing the Big M. The show was a bit late, but they did it, everybody rolling down their windows and oohing and aahing at both the fireworks and the competing (or complementing) show from Mother Nature.

Child was impressed for about 10 minutes and then fell asleep on my lap. She does every year.

Some things change, some stay the same. The trick is to love them all, right?