Independance Day in Grandville

It's the ideal suburbia, so it's no wonder that the City of Grandville would throw an ideal 4th of July celebration! The day's festivities started at 8:30 with a flag raising, and then a community pancake breakfast. All of which I've done in the past, and didn't do this year.

As always, there was a huge turnout for the annual parade. It is one of the parade's in the greater Grand Rapids area, period! Towards the beginning of the parade, we had 2 A-10 airplanes perform a fly-over for the parade. The parade reached us around 11:00 am, which is weird, 'cause it was slated to start at 11, and it doesn't usually reach us till at least 15 minutes later. But the reason for that became apparent later on.

During the beginning of the parade, when the local police and fire vehicles were parading on down, there was a emergancy fire vehicle that came rushing down the street in the opposite direction. We think it was going to an actual emergancy. It was very weird to see.

There was a Sunset retirement manor bus in the parade. And right behind it was this woman dressed in a pixie/angel-like creature, with big angel-butterfly-hybrid wings. Since she was right behind the retirement bus, one is left to conclude that it may have been the angel of death. There were other animated creatures that I can show through the photo medium, as soon as Blogspot's photo uploader works for me.

With about 10 vehicles left to go in the parade, it started to rain. Off and on during the parade, there would be sporadic sprinkling, but this was a fully-acknowledged releasing of raindrops. Perhaps parade organizers saw the radar, and thought that if it started just a bit early, they could still get most of it through before everyone was completely soaked.

Later on, we went to the annual Craft Show, and walked around the sports and various activities on the Middle School's front lawn. All things were as remembered from years before, with an addition of a rock-climbing wall. It was still fun to walk through, darting in-and-out of the crowds, an art almost perfected while walking the mall. (I call it people weaving. Just, don't try to take that literally, 'cause, EW.) And it's fun to just watch all the people. Oh, and take loads of pictures. ^_^

From there, I went to work at Russ', where I had been told by many people that I had missed a very hectic breakfast, and an equally busy-and-stressful lunch. Dinner had it's busy moments, and there was one or two points in which I had to do a ton of stuff all at once, but ultimately, it wasn't anything too bad at all. Not like the breakfast or lunch that I heard so much about! We closed at 7 instead of 10, so once all the orders were done, EVERYTHING went to the dishwashers. And as such, after a little bit, I sent a couple cooks over to the dish room to help out. Closing early is never easy on the dish room. EVER. But we all got out around 8, so it worked out pretty well.

I went home, where Dad put on a fireworks show of his own. (no, we didn't make any trips to the border...) When I can get the photo thing working, I'll be posting a couple from this show. There were some REALLY cool fireworks!

Then, it started to rain again. Gently at first, then it came down a little harder. We went in to check the radar, and it looked like we'd have a "blob" of green over us for quite some time. Mom suggested that we drive past the Middle School, to see if the crowds had cleared out. If they had, then there would probably be no fireworks. If they were still there, well... Fireworks were still probably on.

I dropped John and M.J. off at Wedgewood Park, and they ran over to the Middle School to find the information booth. Meanwhile, I spent a great deal of time just trying to be able to drive to a turn-around in the park's parking lot. And, incidentially, driving around on a holiday night when it's dark AND raining, and people are darting in and out constantly like it's a video game or something, is not the ideal definition of fun.

We eventually were able to leave the park, and we caught up again with John, who was running like mad to get home to deliver the message - the fireworks were still on! So, with wipers going constantly, we rushed back home. Everybody, except Dad, who was staying home with young master James, power-walked our way to the back field of the Middle School to see the fireworks.

And there we were... Umbrella's and coats on to protect us from the rain, watching the fireworks. I had one hand above my camera's lens, to help protect the truely vital parts of the camera from the rain. At one point, it rained hard enough where I took an old t-shirt and covered most of the camera up - while still taking pictures, of course!

I hope to have firework photo's up by tonight. Fingers crossed!