My Favorite Holiday With My Favorite Friends

The Fourth of July is the best time of the year, hands down. The American Flag displayed everywhere, outside celebrations, marching bands, candy tosses, bar-ba-ques, fireworks, late nights outside, family and friend get togethers, obnoxious old navy t-shirts, American Pride bursting through everyone's chests...    The only gift you have to worry about giving is your ability let loose and belt a few versus from 'I'm Proud to be an American".

I feel the spirit more this day than I do on Christmas (yeah, I wrote it).

My whole being fills with gratitude to God when I see a good firework show. What a great show of celebration.

This year was one of the best Fourth of July's yet. I caravaned down to San Clemente to spend the weekend with all the friends (Amanda, Lily and Mark, you were missed).

All of us hanging out in one beach house was cozy, we had to wait in line for the shower. But it was great being around everyone. It's fun to see everyone gathered with all the spouses and little children. I loved hearing little snippets of Chip, Steven and Justin's conversations... "yeah, 80 grand for a townhouse is good, what insurance do you have?" "So 60 grand a year in Arizona, that's great, you going to take the offer?" ... such grown up man talk. We are such adults these days.

The first night all together, we all made spaghetti. Mary sang the Star Spangled Banner with the rest of us chiming in... which rocked. We had birthday cake for Justin, and I offended the Simpsons when I said I hated Obama. They offended me when they said they hated Glenn Beck (the 13th apostle!!!). That night we had the 3 queen sized beds in the basement, along with 2 blow-up mattresses... talk about Sleep Over eXtreme (SOX).

Sunday we drove to Fallbrook, where at church we got to see our amazing friends bless little Naomi Simpson. We drove to Oceanside and watched the dolphins swim by from the pier. Kaylene got offended by the fishermen who had caught a sand ray and weren't throwing it back (she also picked up litter everywhere we went, dang hippy liberal). And the Badgers bought us all delicious take-out pizza from Pizza Port, to take back to the beach house and chow down on.

One of the best moments of the trip for me was actually on the day of the 4th. After a morning of deep sea fishing, an afternoon of playing on the beach and a steep wet walk back to the beach house, it was finally my turn to shower. I was in the basement bathroom showering when Steven yelled through the door to me, "Hey Whitdawg! Do you want cheese on your burger?"

"Yeah!" I hollered back. As I stood there naked in the shower and listened to Steven to run back upstairs to inform the boys grill'n, I contemplated how lucky I am to have these friends.

Dinner that night was good ol' american burgers with fish that had been swimming earlier that morning in the ocean. At the table I was surrounded by patriotic bunting banners, obnoxious 4th of July shirts,  and sun-kissed smiling faces of my friends.

After we walked down to the beach to watch the fireworks off the pier. 

Good bless America, land that I love.