4th of July

Well of course John had to work on the fourth of July, so the kids and I headed out for the parade in Odessa in the morning with some of our friends. First of all I can't believe that there were no parades...etc in Midland, what a stinkin deal!!! So we piled in their suburban and drove 20 minutes down the highway to partake in some 4th of July delight!Of course my children had to wear red white a blue! We didn't have to wait very long for the parade...if you can call it that! Lets see the flags lead the way, followed by a marching bad, a few trucks with banners and advertisements, a karate group, and the most hilarious display of auto-uniqueness...normally at most parades I've been to there's a lovely line up of classic cars, restored to perfection or close to it, you know a few model T's, Chevy's, etc....well here they had an interesting line up of Lincoln's and caddy's 2 or 3 were pimped with bright paint jobs and hydraulics, the rest were your basic factory line early 90's models....HAHAHAHA....i'm not quite sure why they were even in the line up...quite interesting!I have to say that BY FAR the most interesting float was one put on by a Baptist church...they had huge wood cut outs painted to represent the stone tablets that the ten commandments were on, and then they had a large cross with a man on it wearing a white sheet, splattered with red paint to look (not at all) like blood...now I understand sharing your faith, and I think church floats are great, but where's the taste in this? I almost took a picture to post, but it was just wrong, and in NO way did it reverence the life and sacrifice of our Savior...AND it was just plain creepy...the guy who was posing as Christ was "acting" lifeless and limp on the cross with "blood" dripping off of his head and body, I feel for any kids who don't know the story of the crucifixion, it probably looked like some dead guy dangling on a wood post on the back of a truck.....hopefully their parents could explain....gosh darn it...where are the missionaries when you need them!!!My other big beef with this rediculous parade was that NO ONE THREW CANDY...i'm sure there's a good reason behind it, maybe they've had too many accidents with kids running into the street, or maybe they're very anti-litter....who knows, all I know is that this parade was a BUST! Oh yes, and lets not forget to mention the MANY floats that were proudly adorned with the confederate flag not that I think it's a sin to fly it as it is part of our nations history, especially the history of the south, but gee I don't know it was just weird me being a northern girl and all, it's just not something i've seen in my neck of the woods before! Although I would like to note that that the number of star spangled banners FAR out weighed the number of confederate flags.Well at least my daughter seemed to enjoy saluting the vet who saluted her in play as he drove by in his vintage army jeep!!!

Everyone's been napping, and hopefully we'll find some fun later tonight at the fireworks, that are surprisingly still going forth even though we here in west Texas are in a HORRIBLE drought! Good golly, God Bless Texas!