I hope everyone is planning a fun, safe holiday weekend! Our offices closed today and so we are enjoying the extra day. We ran to the store to stock up on items for grilling (as did everyone else) But it was okay. You just have to know when you go to the food store the day before a holiday, you won't be shopping alone, and will keep to take a long a bag of patience in one of your reusable shopping totes.
I bought some huge portabella mushrooms for grilled portabella "burgers" tomorrow. Yum! Can't wait.
There is so much going on here for the holiday that I think I will stay home the rest of the weekend. The interstate was so packed and backed up today, and we had thought about going to DC today, glad we changed our minds.
Starting last night there will be fireworks somewhere every night through Sunday. We could hear them last night from the local racetrack. Today, I know they are having them at Bush Gardens. Tomorrow of course, everyone is having them, just about.
I enjoy watching the fireworks, but I don't like the kind people use at home, and I really do not like sparklers. We had some when I was four and my dad handed it to me and I grabbed the wrong in and burned my hand, I was four, that is my defense.
Anyway, I was searching for some nice graphic or photo from my collection to include here today, but instead I found this gentleman (click on his name to visit his webpage)
David Utting and his paintings. I instantly fell in love with them! Please check out his webpage. I hope you like them as much as I do!
So in the spirit of the holiday I'm including the Star Spangled Banner below. . .
Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro' the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore dimly seen thro' the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream:
'T is the star-spangled banner: O, long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash'd out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
O, thus be it ever when freemen shall stand,
Between their lov'd homes and the war's desolation;
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserv'd us as a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust"
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
Francis Scott Key
Happy Birthday America!
