Happy 4th!

Mount Holly fireworks

We began celebrating the 4th of July on June 29th, which is when our community of Mount Holly put on their fireworks display. They alternate dates with the surrounding communities so that they don't compete with each other. It is kind of nice because you can go see fireworks every night for several days if you want. Though we went by ourselves, we ended up sitting with other people from our community, which was fun.

Our son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter drove down for a visit on June 30th. Luckily many people in our neighborhood have baby items they are willing to lend out. It's been over 30 years since we have had a high chair in the house! 

It was the first time the baby had gone on a long car ride, and she did great. She also did well sleeping in her pack-n-play, which they hadn't tried before. Another first was a visit to our community swimming pool. She was not too sure that she liked that, but seemed to enjoy the wading pool we put in our screened porch the next day.

The kids were able to go out twice while they were here, while we watched the baby. They do not have any family living near them, so adult time is pretty scarce for them. Needless to say, we were happy to have the baby all to ourselves.

We will go up to visit them in September, and I am hoping that our little gal will remember us. I know that around 8 or 9 months they start to be afraid of strangers. Hopefully with enough FaceTime she will still recognize us.

 

The United States of Mind

For 246 years our country has been observing its independence from Great Britain. July 4th is celebrated with parades, picnics and fireworks. This year was no exception, but the tone might have sounded a little different. The U.S., and indeed the world, is still reeling from the lingering effects of Covid. Just when it seemed we were recovering, the war on Ukraine began. Gas prices have soared, followed by drastic increases in food, airline tickets and interest rates. Continued mass shootings and the overturning of Roe v.  Wade have also contributed to a general feeling of anger and distrust in America.

All of these things have overshadowed the fact that the coronavirus is still a major problem in this country. People seem numb to the fact that we are losing 295 citizens each day to the virus. Most have adopted the attitude that it is no longer if they will get the virus, but when. As Covid continues to mutate, people who appeared to be immune from earlier variants are succumbing to the new strains. Only time will tell if the current shots and boosters will continue to protect us. Ive said this before, but I think the real story that will come out of this pandemic is a study regarding why certain people never got the virus.

Here are the latest Covid statistics: North Carolina has had 2.87 million cases and 25,219 deaths. In the United States there have been 87.7 million cases and 1.02 million deaths. Worldwide there have been over 550 million cases and 6.3 million deaths. The United States is at a 67.5% full vaccination rate. Worldwide that number is a discouraging 61.8%.

Tension, like the air here in North Carolina, is thick enough to cut with a knife.

Mountain Island Lake

Happy 4th of July

 

St. Louis Arch

Photography Challenge Week 27

For this week we were to show gratitude in our photo. I'm grateful to live in a community that still embraces a hometown parade, and for the men and women who make it possible for us to celebrate America's freedom. It was an added bonus that our son was visiting from the D.C. area and wanted to attend the parade with us. It was been many years since the kids have been here to enjoy the 4th of July festivities.

Dogwood Photography Challenge Week 27

Happy Independence Day, America!

graduation

One blog post in June - that is pathetic! I should have posted before now, but I had a great time with my sister shooters taking pictures of the graffiti wall downtown. I hadn't been down there since I photographed my great-niece for her high school graduation. It's hard to believe that was two years ago already.

They have really cleaned up the area near where the wall begins. That bike trail tax we all voted for sure does come in handy. You never know where it will pop up. At any rate, while the day was bright and a little warm, it was still fun to be out with like-minded women. A few of us went out for lunch after taking the pictures. Here are a few of my favorite photos from the day.

St. Louis graffiti wall

Last weekend we attended an open house for a presbyterian church in Kirkwood. The congregation took an old school building that is located in the historic area of Meramec Highlands and repurposed it as their church. Our interest in the renovation lies in the fact that the school had once been owned by St. Joseph Hospital to house their child care center. The center was open to non-employees of the hospital as well, and our son went there from 1987 until he began kindergarten in the fall of 1990. It was amazing to see the pictures of the mess the church started with when they bought the property, and the transformation into what it has become. It is truly a great re-use of an old school. It was fun for us to walk through the school and see the rooms our little guy once played in.

the new church in 2016

school party in 1990

A gal on the Facebook page of my community posted that she had more plums on her tree than she could possibly eat, so she offered them up to anyone who wanted some. I had never tried to make plum jam, and thought this would be the perfect time to try my hand at it. Not wanting to seem greedy since I needed quite a few to make a batch, I asked her if she wanted a jar of my finished product in exchange for the plums. She knew that I had also made some blackberry/raspberry jam recently, so she eagerly offered a trade for a jar of that instead. I'm thinking she was probably pretty tired of plum anything by that point. The exchange was made, and I had to wait a few days for the plums to ripen. Personally, I wasn't a fan of the flavor of these plums, so I was unsure what the jam would end up tasting like. At the end, I was pleasantly surprised. The plum jam has just the right combination of sweet-tart taste. However, plums are way more labor intense than any other fruit I have tried so far. I won't be rushing out to make more anytime soon. Having quite a few jam sessions (har, har!) under my belt now, it is a mystery to me how anyone makes money selling homemade jams and jellies at markets.

plum jam

 Tomorrow Jim's aunt, uncle and cousin are coming from Minnesota for a visit and to attend a Cardinals game. It will be fun to show them our little Americana town in all of its 4th of July finery. Happy 4th, everyone!

July 4th

Independence Day

Webster Groves Parade

We are having a relatively quiet 4th of July around here. Thursday morning Jim and I went to the parade as we always do when we are in town. It is such a great experience. We met a really nice couple who sat on the parkway next to us. They have four children, and the younger two were with them while the older two walked in the parade. It ends up that their 10 year old daughter is best friends with the family who moved in next door to us two years ago. We kept our opinions of them to ourselves. But as we talked about other things I learned that the woman's mother is first generation American from Scotland, while her dad is from Switzerland (and the two met in Africa!). The husband's mom is from Ireland. It is rare to meet anyone who is first generation these days, at least in my little world. Since we arrived at the parade route early in order to secure a coveted spot in the shade, it helped pass the time conversing with new people.


 Later in the day we went to the lake house of Jim's business partner, located a mere 45 minutes from our house. I brought some snacks and a Patriotic Bundt Cake, and we had fun boating and enjoying the grilled shishkabobs and later the fireworks. It was different sitting in the middle of the lake on a boat as the fireworks were set off. I did miss our fireworks in Webster Groves though. They always put on a good show.

Friday I began the day with a tough work out at the fitness center, and then ruined it all by having a margarita with chips and salsa at the Hacienda. We met our old next door neighbors for lunch there, and it was fun to catch up with them and all their activities. Then today we took our bikes out to Route 66 State Park and road for about an hour before it got too hot. So far it has been a great holiday! Happy 4th!

Happy Birthday, America!

This past weekend seemed really long, which is a good thing. Saturday night we finally got around to celebrating Father's Day. Katie was in Prague and Jim on his motorcycle trip on the actual day. We took Jim to a new restaurant in Webster Groves called The Block. It is an interesting concept in that they have a small butcher shop inside the restaurant. So if you love their pork chops, say, you can buy fresh pork chops to go and they will tell you how to prepare them. It took me forever to locate their website (not good, restaurant owner!) so that I could see what their menu looks like. They bill themselves as a family restaurant, but the menu is definitely not kid-friendly. When my kids were young, they would not have liked anything on the menu. I never could find the hours on the website, so I had to call to see when they are open. (Not good, restaurant owner!)

When we arrived a little after 5:00 (this being the time they open), all of the wait staff was sitting in the dining room going over the specials for the evening. We were seated anyway, which was more than a little weird. I ordered the burger and fries with coleslaw, Katie got the mussels appetizer (see what traveling abroad does?), and Jim got the pork chops. I am not a very adventuresome eater, thus my dinner decision. But the burger was grass fed beef with a strange little spice in it, the fries had salt and pepper and something else on them - maybe sage or oregano? - and I don't know what was up with the slaw, which I usually love. Katie said her mussels were good, though not as fresh as Europe. Go figure, right? Jim loved his meal. So there you go...I would not rush back there, which is too bad. I like patronizing the local businesses.

The Block

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Sunday we drove about 30 minutes from St. Louis to a friend's lake house. The day had been sunny and hotter than Hades, and we were looking forward to a boat ride and swimming in the lake. As we were driving, lightning lit up the sky and it began to rain. And it rained for the entire time we were there. So we were cooped up in a small house with 7 adults and 3 kids. But we played games and were still able to grill, so it turned out fine.

On the 4th Jim, Kirby and I walked over early to claim our spot on Gore for the Webster Groves parade. Fortunately I had brought umbrellas, as we ended up getting a nice little downpour for a bit. People improvised on keeping dry as you can see in the pictures.

But they were still able to get the parade in, and in fact it was not so ungodly hot for a change. Then in the evening we walked up to the railroad tracks behind Schnucks to watch the evening fireworks. I drug my tripod along as I wanted to see if I could get any decent photos of the fireworks if I used it. The show was really good, but only lasted 15 minutes. We spent that much time trying to navigate through the crowds to walk home. Is it really worth it? I found a super nice cell phone on the tracks as we were leaving, and debated what to do with it. The owner might come back for it. Or one of the PAS persons might steal it. Do I take it home? Take it into Schnucks and turn it in to the courtesy counter? I ended up bringing it back to the house with us. We turned it on and went through the contacts until we found Home. I called that number and probably really confused the man who answered the phone. He thought it might be his father-in-law's phone, which made no sense to me. Katie said it looked like a woman's phone, not a man's. I gave him my name and phone number to call if someone in his house reported it missing. Then the cell phone rang. To answer or not to answer, that is the question. Thinking it was probably just a friend calling, we didn't answer it. Katie went into the Facebook account through the phone and found the gal's name, along with the fact that she recently married the guy who had just tried calling the phone. (All of this felt like a huge invasion of privacy to me, but I couldn't see any way around it.) So I called him back and explained where I had found the phone. They had just been walking the tracks looking for it so they were still in the area, thankfully. They came by to pick it up, and we learned that they just bought a house a couple blocks away from us. They will be moving into it as soon as it passes inspection. All's well that ends well.