Castle Hill Celebration

For my (Kim's) birthday, Lucas' mom (Denise) gave us tickets to a 4th of July celebration at Castle Hill on Crane Beach near where we live. Now, the 4th of July is one of my favorite holidays (did you know that ,Denise?). In part because I was surprisingly patriotic as a young girl - for a little while, if asked my favorite color I would immediately respond, "Red, white, and blue," - and in part because the 4th is a very social holiday usually spent outdoors with many exciting events and friends all around to share it with, but mostly because I am a sucker for fireworks. I can't get enough of them. So I have been anxiously awaiting this evening and the first night of our 4th celebration. But we had a few problems. The first was that we didn't know what to wear, and although that sounds very high school cheerleader the truth was that, from what we read online about this place, we were going to be hobnobbing with the social elite and we didn't want to be dressed too casually for the event. So we went with "comfortable but churchworthy" hoping that would at least let us blend with whatever the dress turned out to be. It turned out that the dress was typical 4th - shorts, t-shirts, capris, tank tops...the usual. It also turned out that the event wasn't what we expected at all. There was a Big Band concert, we expected swing dancing...there was none. We expected people walking around and mingling, instead there were two big hills covered with blankets and lawn chairs and you found a spot and plunked down your stuff. The area is affluent, the people that are coming are probably used to being pampered, we expected food...there were 4 carnival like food stands that provided roasted nuts, sauage sandwiches, fresh squeezed limeade, or fried dough. We did notice that a lot of people brought picnic baskets and I lookeed around to check out their picnincs (soooo hungry!) and I noticed that these people do not do paper bags with turkey sandwhiches. They brought their own little tables, with table cloths and candles. They had smoked salmon and extravagant pasta salads and breads and cheeses and wine...with real, glass wine goblets, and this was not a few here and there, this was everyone around us. Now that's what I call a picnic. Anyways, Lucas and I finally gave in and payed ridiculous amounts of money for sausages in a bun (that made me seriously sick) and after walking around a little we settled down and realized that we had 4 1/2 hours left and NOTHING to do. So we scavenged around in the car and found the game SMESS (which was in there because we were going to give it away before we moved, but we never did, thank God). So, desperate for somethingto do we settled into a game...and another...and another (I would like to note that the winner of the 3-games series was me!!! And for anyone who has beat Lucas at anything, you know how thrilled he was about that). But, after the clothing crisis and the hunger and the food that made me sick and the boredom and the playing of the random game that I now love and will never give away, the fireworks started (with an orchestra playing suitable patriotic music in the background) and they were amazing, and I was so happy, and the entire evening was SO worth it (Thanks, Denise!!). We think we might do this again next year...we'll just plan a little better now that we know what to expect!