Independence Day

Yesterday, I had to run some errands at the end of the day, so I stopped at home, got the family and we ran to the shopping center. After that we drove over to Delta and went to a beach that's across the bay from us (well, our part of the world is bordered by 3 bays--this one was on Boundary Bay. First we had a pizza picnic and then Anders played on the play center. Then we made it down to the beach. The tide was out so we went wading in a tidal pool. The water was quite warm--almost bathtub temperature. The boys had fun wading, and Anders had his bucket full of shells.

The pictures don't do justice. You may noticed the snow-capped peak of Mt. Baker behind Anders' head in the first picture. Nils really enjoyed the water--he wasn't content if his feet weren't wet.

We headed home quite late, but Anders didn't go to sleep right away, so we ended up going on a pajama adventure. We headed down the road and found a parking spot in a neighborhood that was atop the hill overlooking White Rock. From there we sat and watched the fireworks from across the bay (Semiahmoo Bay, this time--toward Washington). Actually, we could see fireworks from about 20 miles away in several directions. But the big show in Blaine was quite nice. I think it soothed some homesickness for Beth. It was somewhat odd to celebrate America's independence and not be in the country, watching the fireworks from across the border. At some point a group of celebraters in a house close to where we were watching from brought out kazoos and started in with The Star Spangled Banner, followed by other patriotic tunes. They actually did a fairly good job.