Happy July 4th!

Anna is back from Japan!  She had a great trip and had lots to tell.  Stay tuned for a special guest blog update from Anna so that she can give you more details.  She arrived home at 10:30 PM on June 30.  Thankfully, her mother did not sign her up for the swim meet at 8 AM the next morning.  Unfortunately, she was scheduled to lifeguard at the swim meet at 8 AM.  Even more unfortunate was she also had to work at Wolf Trap that night (on the plus side, it was for the Diana Ross concert, which was awesome, so it was worth it).  On the plus side, she had a couple of days off from both jobs so she can catch up on sleep and adjust to the time zone.
Ready for Japan

Joe and Theresa decided to take a few days off to head to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.  This was also Benny's first road trip, and he did well.  They got to enjoy some nice weather at the beach and a great rental cottage with a spectacular garden. Theresa took advantage of some outlet shopping while they were there so you may see her wearing clothes that are less than 10 years old. They headed out just as the Canadian wildfire smoke settled in on the area again, creating another code red smoke haze in DC and at the beach.  

The July 4th weekend was a somewhat quiet affair.  Due to the labor shortage, the firework company needed to divide up the local shows.  Joe & Theresa met friends on Sunday for the Fairfax fireworks while Anna met friends for the Vienna fireworks.  Monday night was the neighborhood block party at the pool, complete with bands, food trucks and thunderstorms (we didn't make that one).  July 4th was the annual Fairfax parade (we did make that one).  Apparently,


it is really difficult to get high school marching band members together for a summer performance as two high schools needed to combine bands and others didn't even show up. By far the most groups in the parade was not the politicians but boy scout troops.  We lost count of how many different troops there were.  The crowd favorite - the librarian book cart drill team - was there with their twirling carts.  The parade would not be complete without them.  We tried to go to the pool for the afternoon, but it was so crowded that there were not seats.  Alas, we opted for a quiet afternoon at home.

Happy July 4th!

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