Small Town Celebrations

It's the kind of party where if you've been invited once, you're invited for life. And they're the kind of people you want to spend time with, because they aren't like everyone else.

My friends Ferd and Sharron live in a windmill. (Actually, it's their guest house.) You can't get more quintessentially Solvang than that. Ferd used to be an L.A. County fireman. Sharron taught. Both are talented artists who have been married forever. They have 16 grandchildren and great-grandchildren ranging in age from 24 years to six weeks.  They've lived amazing lives and love to entertain us with their stories.

Besides the windmill, their property has a main house, an elf house (at least I convinced my daughter!), an art studio about the size of my home and a hillside patio that overlooks the staging area for the Solvang Rotary's fireworks show. Every year we climb on the roof of a storage shed that sits down the hill below Ferd and Sharron's patio to watch fire explode in the sky.

And on the hillside.

Last year I think the kids had more fun watching firemen down the hill stamping out little fires from embers that hit the ground or fireworks that didn't quite make it to the sky. This year the wind blew the opposite way so the show stayed in the air. We watched the stars and the explosions above, listened to the ramblings of the pleasantly buzzed people around us, talked about our funny hometown parade, felt the chill of the fog creeping over the hills.

Memories are made of days like this, friends like this.

I hope your 4th of July was just as spectacular.