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Monday, July 6, 2015

celebrating 'murrica

so, along with about four bazillion other people, we'd made plans with some friends to hit the beach for the 4th of july.  it was gonna be great - one family had volunteered to head down super early to secure us a spot and snag one of the firepits so we could have a bonfire, make s'mores, what have you.  the bean and i hit up target and bought some fun supplies - sand toys, snacks, you know the drill.  we were all ready and excited to spend a day at the beach and have a ton of fun.

except that as most well-thought plans do, they fell through.  we hadn't taken into consideration the fact that there was a 5K that morning, and when our friends arrived at 6am, all of the firepits and a shitton of the parking was already taken.  poop.  and i still don't know how it went down, but we ended up making plans to head in the complete opposite direction and go up to the mountains instead.

sounds like fun, yes?  and we were excited to go up to big bear, a place we hadn't been since way before g-wan passed away.  the only snag in the new plan was the fact that i still needed to head down to the OC to deliver some cookies.  since we'd thought we were going to head down to huntington beach, i figured it'd be no big deal to make a quick detour to drop them off rather than have to ship them the previous day.  d-oh!

all that driving around made someone very drowsy.


meanwhile, the hub and i were enjoying the drive up.  pretty, right?


it was pretty awesome to watch the number on the thermostat continue to drop more and more as we continued climbing up the mountain.  although we were a little alarmed when we finally reached town and found that the weather was drastically different up there:


no worries, though.  by the time we pulled up to the cabin we'd rented for the night, the sun was out again and all was well.


it was quite a lovely cabin indeed, with plenty of room for the ten of us that were gathering to celebrate the holiday.  i mean, yeah - the furniture was rather outdated and the window coverings were...shall we say, not ones that we would have chosen?  but who cares - it was one night, and we were determined to have a great time.








although i'm not all about soaking in a rented tub.  i don't know why, but the idea of it gave me the heebie jeebies.


there were cute touches like these little towel animals in the bathrooms, though.


since no one else had arrived yet, we decided to head into town to find a snack or something.  



there were lots of signs like this, for the firefighters who worked so hard on a fire that had burned several thousand acres up here recently.


i never resist a good photo op.


we, of course, ended up at the 'bucks, where the bean finally got to indulge in the cotton candy-flavored frappuccino (it was too sweet even for her, by the way).


when we got back to the cabin, our other friends had arrived.  they were unloading their cars and unpacking the food they'd brought up for all of us.  meanwhile, the hub decided to test out that pool table.


while we grazed on chips and fresh ceviche, the kids happily jumped into the jacuzzi for some water play.



then it was time to fire up the BBQ and get started on meatapalooza 2015.




i'd say we were having a great time, wouldn't you?


by the time we'd stuffed ourselves silly with all that grilled meat, it was time to throw on some pants and head out to the lake to snag a spot and watch some fireworks.  with over 4,000 shells on deck, the show was billed as "the largest fireworks show west of the mississippi."  this meant that folks had been staking out spots for hours, and somehow we managed to take our non-4x4 tahoe up on a hill and grab a pretty darn good place to hang out.



after what seemed like forever, we were finally treated to a pretty darn good show.  of course, i couldn't get any decent shots, but i'm sure you managed to see some good fireworks yourself anyway, right?


back at home, the kids crashed out on the bunk beds while we hung out downstairs and chatted and laughed.  there wasn't much in the way of seating, and so the hub ended up like this for awhile before we all finally gave up and went to bed ourselves.


happy birthday, 'murrica!

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