Fireworks


Yesterday was an eventful day. We went raspberry picking in the morning and then came home and swam in the beautiful lake with lots of cousins. We all piled into cars and drove over to town for the 4th of July parade. Then we made our way down through to the middle of town and visited our Aunt at her art gallery until the parade started. The parade was a flurry of red, white and blue and lots of candy. It was much more political than the Ithaca parade. Anyways, being the lover of photography that I am I took pictures. Of course.

Cherry Hut buddies!

Here's the point where I have to explain about cousins. My great-great grandfather Arthur and his brother Austin (and their sister Mary, but she had no kids) settled here, on this beach in 1903. At that point this place had been logged so it was basically a swamp and it was being sold cheap. Our family kept expanding down the beach. Now there are mostly summer homes up here but we come back every summer. This whole family thing means that I know my fourth cousins. Basically everyone's a cousin up here. We spend bonfires trying to figure out how we're related.
I got home to find my fourth cousin Corina and my third cousin Robby in the water. I went swimming with them. We had a paddle board out in the water with us and we were basically playing "let's try to never let anyone be on the paddle board." It was very fun. Then I went inside and made frosting for my 4th of July cupcakes, and decorated them. Here they are:

Right before serving them I added red and blue pop-rocks to make them explosive. I would've gotten pictures but the pop-rocks started exploding as soon as I opened the package so I wanted to serve them as soon as I could.
There were many cousins on our beach. We had a picnic.

Then we set fireworks off on the beach and watched some from across the lake.

Laurel <3