4th of July

For the 4th of July we went out on the Columbia river on Paul's boat, ate, drank, and found a sandy beach and swam to it. Andrew and I did, anyway, Andrew at least three times. The other kids and Nancy did too, with life jackets on. The water was cold and the sand was hot. The current was strong too, at least enough to be interesting. Easy to get to the beach - it's hard to miss a nice long beach. Not quite so easy to catch the boat.

The engines overheated and one wouldn't start back up, so we limped back to the dock early and came home for fireworks and the rest of the barbecue. That actually worked out very well, as we missed the traffic snarl-ups, and we got to see the neighborhood fireworks in full swing. Every cul-de-sac had a party going on, and the biggest one I saw was right up the street with a crowd of ~60 of our neighbors watching a handful of folks lighting things off. Andrew and I discussed the ones we would buy for next year's celebration.