Fireworks, Fireflies, Smores, and a Jig

This evening at my aunt's farm here in Virginia, we had a lot of types of fun (me, my son, my daughter, my mom, my niece, my aunt, two of my cousins and my cousins once removed, and some more family from other sides):

- I caught my first firefly in my hands, and watched it in a jar for a few minutes before letting it go

- We swam in the pool and danced the Virginia Reel in the water (8 of us)

- I swang in the hammock under the trees

- I walked down to the gazebo by the pond with my niece (16) and my son (14) and watched the sunset reflected in the still water and had fun taking photos of each others' silhouettes against the scenery with my iPhone

- We enjoyed interacting with the 3 dogs of varying sizes and breeds, and the 4 cats, and we saw 3 deer strolling in the evening air, and cows and horses in the pastures. We tried to converse with the bovines in American Cow, but it must have come out more Swiss Cow, since they didn't really seem to get our point.

- We danced mini versions of the Jolly Gordon, In-Out-and-Across, Sheena's Saunter, Soldier's Joy, Sellenger's Round, and the Pattycake Polka in the living room (with only 6-8 dancers! A very small circle!)

- Some of us played croquet

- We enjoyed an all-American meal: grilled hamburgers, hot dogs, ketchup, baked beans, potato salad, macaroni salad, corn on the cob, green salad with walnuts and strawberries, and watermelon, and then made s'mores over a fire outside. The onions for the dinner came straight out of my aunt's garden just before we ate - I had never seen onions in the ground before. Thrilling somehow. She grew them from seed.

- We waved sparklers in the dark, and then set off a couple of ground-based fireworks while singing songs like the National Anthem and America the Beautiful.

- For good measure, we also sang some Christmas carols in harmony there outside in the dark. Not so surprising we would think of that, given that my aunt keeps two Christmas trees lit up in her living room even in July (this comes from my grandmother, who had a Christmas room all year too).

- We hugged and chatted and enjoyed being together

Thank you, God of all good gifts, for this lovely evening, and the rain going away in time, and for my family. Talked about my husband and how nice it would have been to have had him there. I do miss that uniquely wonderful man. Get to see him soon, yay.