It doesn't get BETTER than this!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well I am home now, from one of the most incredible Fourth of July Weekends EVER! My Son Donald has already written his post about it and Lisa, his wife, and my DIL, will be writing hers too. This is how it all went down.

Part One: We debate

About a week ago, well actually I guess it was exactly a week ago, my little brother Mike who lives over in Tacoma (with wife Cindy and kids) called my house. He was not looking to talk to me. Oh no. Apparently, I am nothing more than chopped liver.

He was wondering if Donald (my son) was there because he had, A. called Donald and Lisa's, B. realized by the never ending ring followed by the answering machine that Donald and Lisa were not home, and C. He knew that they always (well "ALWAYS" but every once in a while a "NOT ALWAYS") have Sunday dinner at my house. "Yes Mike, Donald is here" I answered wondering what on earth he wanted my son for instead of me. Well as it turns out he is trying to interest my SON (the emphasis here being NOT me) into coming over to the wet side for my Uncle Richard's every other year family Fourth of July celebration at his two side by side cabins on a beautiful private lake called Lake Mason.

Now up until now we have only heard about these celebrations. And they have always sounded excellent beyond belief. But for some reason, we have never spent the five or so hours to drive over there.

My kids like to slander me and blame our not ever going to things like this on my alleged, party poopery. Apparently my baby brother has believed this slanderous talk and that is why he went over my head and asked my son. Now first of all I want to make it clear that the charges against me, while maybe having a smidgen of validity, (as in from time to time I may possibly have been perceived as slightly poopy) are mostly greatly exaggerated.

I swear, you say "NO" to one trip and you are branded for life.

Well to try to make a long story short, after much deliberation with my married son and married daughter, we all agreed that this would indeed be our year to crash the Brinkerhoff ( that would be my maiden name) family Fourth.

Stinky Donald of course, kept everyone nervous by telling anyone who would listen to him that he would believe I was really going the second he saw me put a suitcase in the van and pull out of the drive way. I may not have put the suitcase in (that is what husbands are for) but boy did I get in that car and head off into the west.

Part Two : We arrive.

We got there about nine thirty Thursday night. Don and I (with Shawn of course) decided to carpool up with our Daughter Heidi and her husband Jeff, to save them some gas money because they are in the middle of re-financing their house and need to be extra frugal. It was a long squished ride and we were so happy to reach dry land.

Brief (I will try) Explanation:

Fact: My Uncle Richard is one year older than me and we were always the best of friends growing up.

Fact: He was one of the original people hired by Amazon.com (he is their soft wear writer)

Fact: While being one of the most humble, kind, generous, gentle and loving people I know, he is also probably the wealthiest, but the least likely to show it.

Fact: He and his wife, my Aunt Dorothy (a couple of years younger than me) Have many lucrative investments, but they didn't really have many FUN investments, so several years ago they went and plunked down the money and bought a cabin ( a 2800 square foot cabin) on the lake.

Fact: they have just recently also purchased the cabin (slightly smaller at around 2200 sf) next door to the first one so they now have more of a compound. Two cabins, two docks, double the room and double the FUN!

Last Fact: For several years now they have invited Dorothy's family one year and then Richard's family (that means us) the next year to come up for several days of fun.

Enough background, now on to the fun.

Part Three: What we did when we got there

Richard and Dorothy provide most of the food, obviously they provide the lodging, and they provide the lake with all the fun that comes with it. They have a boat and Richard spends LOTS of his time taking everyone out for rides, and also pulling people behind the boat on a huge boat pulled inner-tube. He says that anyone who knows how to drive a boat and more importantly knows boating etiquette can take the boat out by themselves.

We had Richard take us out.

I haven't been on a boat in more than thirty years. I sat at the very front. Of course I first had to do the obligatory, stand up, put my arms up, and scream "I'm the KING of the WORLD" Cheesy, I know, but wouldn't you have?
The ride was so much FUN! He was going super fast and every time he hit a wave and we went flying I would look behind me to make sure my three and five year old granddaughters Lex and Lori were still with us.

Fortunately we never lost either of them.

We spent tons of time visiting with several cousins, my brother Mike and his wife Cindy, and my niece Alicia and her husband Daniel. I realize that just visiting might sound boring, but with all the natural comedians in our family we would laugh so hard we practically made ourselves sick.
I was having so much fun enjoying my family that the time seemed to fly and stand still at the same time.

Part Four: The big night.

Now one of the reasons we were at first slightly reluctant to go was that we didn't have a lot of information about everything. That is pretty much my way of saying, "Yeah, well what about fireworks?" We were assured that Richard spent quite a vast amount of money on some really good ones every year.

Talk about an UNDERSTATEMENT!!!!!

After the great dinner we had, we all just kind of did our own things waiting for it to get dark. Meanwhile Richard and his brother in law (A fireworks expert) and several of the teenage boys (yeah, like you could ever hope to keep them away) placed the huge boxes of fire works out at the end of one of the docks.

By now, there were fireworks exploding, that we could see all around the perimeter of the very large lake. These were not your typical little fireworks stand, fireworks either. They were the same kind you would see in any professional show. Most of these neighboring Fireworkers, however would only set off one at a time. I wasn't really sure what to expect from ours (notice how quickly I take ownership of the whole thing) Several family members who had been to previous Fourths at the lake assured us that they would be spectacular. And if you have read my previous post's comments and seen my brother Mike's blog, you know that the guys in my family really love to blow things up. So I had great faith in Richard.

There are really no words to describe them, but I will try. (Right, ME? At a loss for words?)

First of all the show lasted more than forty minutes. The fireworks were so incredible and since we were all down in front we couldn't have possibly been closer. You may ask, How close WERE YOU?

We were so close that we kept having to brush the little falling pieces of firework debris out of our hair and faces.

We were so close, that we had to have our heads back all the way to see them.

We were so close, that Donald, decided to go out and lay on the other dock and watch them fly overhead, and after about four of them, he came back to the chairs, because the booms were too loud reverberating through the wood of the dock.

We were so close, that a few of them even went off behind us.

It was the most incredible fireworks show ever, and the thing that was even cooler were the other fireworks being shot off all over the place by the other lake house owners.

Ours ( I know. But for all intents and purposes they were OURS) were so much more spectacular than all the other ones that there were several times when the other lake house owners (and guests) gave us round after round of applause.

We were thinking that next time we might bring some of the mattresses out to the other dock and lay on our backs to watch them so we don't all end up with stiff necks. We figure that the mattresses will muffle the boom that goes through the wood of the dock.

Well I am home now and I have probably forgotten half the things that happened and that I wanted to write about, but please be sure to read Donald and also Lisa's blogs for their versions of it all.

Oh and that reminds me, Mandi, my son and DIL Donald and Lisa are jealous that I have a friend from Australia and they don't, so they would like me to introduce you to them and if you don't find them too scruffy, (that would be my son) they would like invites to see your blog. I can vouch for them (mostly) so read their blogs and see what you think. And for everyone else, I hope you had a Fourth of July even half as incredible as MINE!!!!!

UPDATE :

My brother Mike has also written about our great Fourth and he also has put together a little video of it all. So go look at his site and be sure to leave him a comment. He loves meeting new bloggers. Oh and you can click on his blog from my list of iiiiinteresting people. It's the one that says Mike and sometimes Cindy. You will not be dissapointed!