July 4th in June

fireworks

Our community of Mount Holly has their 4th of July fireworks show on the Thursday before the 4th, which meant that the fireworks this year would take place on June 27th. That seems pretty early, but that's how they roll here. We decided to go to see them since the weather was not too hot.

But some residents of our community were going to go to Muddy River Distillery at 7:00 that night. Muddy River is the oldest legal rum distillery in the Carolinas. It used to be in Belmont, but the owners purchased the oldest mill in Gaston County and renovated it into a beautiful bar and event space. It happens to be located in Mount Holly, which is great for us as we love their rum.

Muddy River Distillery

We parked on Main Street around 6:20, and walked the short couple of blocks to the distillery. A food truck was there so we grabbed dinner and settled in with rum cocktails. Then our neighbors began to arrive, and we ended up with about 14 people there. It was fun to catch up with everyone.

As it began to get dark, we walked back to our car, grabbed our chairs and some water, and crossed the street to the Mount Holly Community Garden parking lot. It was a good location on a hill, and we had a nice view of the fireworks. The best part was that afterwards we were able to make a quick u-turn on Main and head home. No traffic jam for us this year!

Mount Holly fireworks

Summer Celebrations

As we have rolled into July, I've been able to get out a bit and do my favorite pastime - taking photographs. Jim and I, along with another photographer friend, have gone out several times together in the last year or so to take pictures. Then after a couple of days, we share our favorite photo from the outing with each other. It is always fun to see our different perspectives, even though we were in the same area together. This month we went to the Columbia Bottom Conservation Area in north St. Louis County.

Located at the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers, Columbia Bottom has over 4,000 acres of land to explore by car, bikes or walking. They also have an area to put in boats, and I have seen people coming there to fish as well. The conservation department has planted fields of sunflowers, so that was the draw for us on this trip. Four fields were in bloom, and they have staggered the plantings so that there should be flowers in bloom through August. Though I wish we had arrived earlier than 9:00 as it was already hot and humid, the sunflowers were amazing.

Columbia Bottom Conservation Area

We also attended the Webster Groves 4th of July parade, which is a time-honored tradition for us. We simply have to pack up our chairs and water bottles and walk over two streets to the parade route. After years of practice, we know where to set up our chairs so that we will be in the shade the entire time. Jim set our chairs up early, and we walked over around 9:15. The parade starts at 10:00 and it takes a good half hour to reach our spot. But the time passes quickly talking to the folks around us and people watching. Despite all the political entries in the parade, I thought it was a good one and that people were very respectful.

Webster Groves parade

On Friday, July 6th we had a nice treat. An architectural firm that Jim works with, Fox Architects, was celebrating their 40th anniversary with a party at their office. It happens to be located directly across the street from the St. Louis Arch, the grounds of which have been newly renovated. For the first time in several years they were able to have Fair St. Louis back on the arch grounds now that construction is complete. We had a bird's eye view from the 18th floor of the One Memorial Drive building, high above the crowds and an exceptional spot to watch the fireworks display. It was a great time!

St. Louis Arch

Minnesota Visits Missouri

Old Glory

Jim's aunt and uncle, along with one of their daughters, visited us over the weekend. They had a long drive from Minnesota, and arrived on Sunday. Normally when we have visitors they come on Friday or Saturday, so having an extra day to prepare the house was unusual for us. We were all ready for them by just after noon, with the dessert made and in the freezer, the salad and lasagna all put together, and I even had my overnight breakfast casserole for Monday morning prepared and waiting in the downstairs refrigerator. Since we were ready so early, I kept thinking we had missed something. But no, we were just extremely organized for a change.

Cardinals game

Monday following breakfast and clean up, we headed downtown for the Cardinals baseball game. Jim and I were sorry to miss the Webster Groves July 4th parade as it is always quite good, but we needed to go to the game early to grab a good parking spot for the elderly relatives, and so that we could watch batting practice. Best laid plans... It began to rain and the field was covered by a tarp. Warm-up took place downstairs out of sight. The 1:15 game was delayed first to 1:45 and then to 2:30. I enjoy going to the games, but they are certainly long enough without adding a late start to the equation. As it ended up, we would have had plenty of time to enjoy the parade and still make it downtown in time for the delayed game start time. Oh well. It was a competitive game, though the Cardinals did not win. We had a nice time anyway. As we didn't get home until nearly 6:30, it was a good thing that I had thrown a roast into the crockpot before we left. It didn't take too long to put the rest of dinner together.

We talked about walking down to the end of our street to watch the fireworks, but everyone was pretty tired. That ended up to be fortuitous, because they had a mishap with our municipal fireworks display. Normally on the 4th the fireworks show is around 20 minutes long. I was standing on our front porch to catch a little glimpse of them, and all of a sudden the noise and sounds were deafening! The whole show lasted about 6 minutes. There was a lot of chatter about the abbreviated show on our local Facebook page, and I was eager to hear what the "official" word would be. It turns out that one of the ground displays got away from them and lit the finale display. Boom! There was no way for the operators to stop it at that point. So I guess it was premature ignitulation - ha!

After breakfast Tuesday morning, our company packed up to head home, and Jim took off for work. I tackled the dishes, four loads of sheets and towels, and put the guest bedrooms back in order. The party was officially over.

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

The 4th of July

We did the usual and customary (for us) things over the July 4th weekend. Jim's office celebrated the holiday on Friday, so we were actually able to go play pickleball together during the day for the first time. Only four people showed up to the special session in Affton, so we got a lot of playing time in. Saturday was our local community parade, and we are lucky in that it passes just a couple blocks over from where we live. We can just grab our chairs, a small cooler, the pooch, and walk over. We had been sitting on the same parkway each year for over 20 years, but those homeowners had the audacity to sell their house. How rude! The new owners have a party and they take lawn chairs and rope off their entire parkway. Doubly rude! That spot was great due to several large trees, and we could sit in shade the entire duration of the parade.

We wandered a little further up the street and found a small spot next to a driveway just big enough for our two chairs. With the slope of the drive, I told my husband that no one would be able to set up chairs there. "The only way our view will be blocked is if someone decides to stand there." Famous last words. A man from the huge party going on across the street came over to our side with his wife and granddaughter. And they stood, which would not have been bad except the guy was taking non-stop photos and/or videos of the little girl, stepping into the street to do so. My husband politely asked him to step back as we couldn't see, and he did so after shooting us a dirty look. That lasted about 5 minutes before he was back in the street again. Unbelievable. Nevertheless, it was a very nice parade and we were blessed with perfect weather this year.

Saturday night we walked up to the end of our street to watch the fireworks. The display was good, but the people watching (and listening) was even better!

On Sunday we went to visit my niece at Barnes as she had open heart surgery to repair a valve on July 1st. I went the day of surgery as well as the day after, but this was the first time Jim was able to go with me. We didn't stay long as she was understandably not feeling up to much company. From there we went to look at one of Jim's projects, Cortex. It is really something! I am so impressed with the quality of their design work.

As an added bonus, I was finally able to find out where it's at!

Don't Rain on My Parade

Saturday was the annual Webster Groves 4th of July parade. It doesn't get more Americana than Webster Groves with its July 4th activities. The carnival, complete with the Lion's barbecue, Miss Webster competition, fireworks and an old fashioned parade something for everyone. Adding to the excitement of this year's parade was the fact that the Anheuser-Busch...errrr, I mean InBev, Clydesdales were leading the parade. In the past such an honor has been bestowed upon the much larger downtown parade. The parade begins at the local high school at 10:00 a.m. As usual, the weather people were wrong in their prediction for Saturday morning. A "chance of rain" turned into a a steady downpour for most of the morning. Was the parade on or off? Thinking that City Hall may have jumped into the 2000s and posted an update on their website, I logged on to take a look. No such luck. Come on City Hall - get with the tweeting! What I did find online, however, was a friend with a posting on Facebook about the parade. A rain delay until 11:00. How did she know this, I asked? Her son is in the band, so she kept us up to date. God I love the internet!

The others who were to attend the parade with us bailed due to the rain, so Jim, Kirby the cockapoo and I grabbed our lawnchairs and some water and walked the two blocks to our favorite seating area. I was surprised at how many people were already gathered for the parade. I don't know if they heard an announcement elsewhere, because they couldn't all have kids in the band! The parade was really good, as usual, but having the Clydesdales was a great treat. Kirby wasn't so sure about them, but with his black and white coloring he could have ridden up on the wagon with the dalmation. The horses were followed by three tractor trailers, making their way precariously through the tree-lined streets. Speaking of horses, the mounted girl scout troop apparently was concerned about bringing their horses due to the earlier rain, so they "rode" stick ponies. Funny! There were fewer politicians this year, which was a blessing even if it did make the parade shorter.

A cooler, overcast day made for a pleasant parade for all. "Nobody, no, nobody, is gonna rain on my parade."