It was the 4th of July and I was ready for my
bbq and fireworks. We got up and
dressed. We went downstairs and had
breakfast. I was a little over the French
toast and sausage, but what else was there for me to eat. It was too hot for oatmeal. Instant grits didn’t sound appealing. I don’t eat cold cereal or eggs, so French toast
and sausage it was.
Unfortunately the picnic didn’t start until 2PM, who has
a picnic on the 4th or on any summer day that starts at 2PM? Seemed like my cousin, Tony Marvin does. So what to do, what to do? Get in the car and drive to American Girl
Store.
Are you kidding me?!?!
Nearly forty miles, we drove so Kayla’s grandma could keep her promise
to buy her granddaughter an outfit for her and her dolls. Couldn’t they have asked me to pick one up? There’s a store that a ten minute walk from
my job, probably five if I walked fast.
We walked into the mall that was full of people. Why were all these people in the mall?
Did they not know it was the 4th
and they should be at home or near water, barbequing, chillin’, mindin’ their
business? I couldn’t remember a 4th
where I was in the mall, it seemed so odd.
And it seemed like Mona and I missed out because everywhere we turned
little kids had on patriotic Old Navy clothes on. Had they had some fantastic sale and we
missed out on it? Had Chi Chi forgotten
to email me to say Old Navy was giving away 4th of July
clothing? Seemed so.
I was starving, but we were going to leave the mall and
head directly to the bbq so I couldn’t get a full meal, so I compromised and
bought the girls Nestlé’s chocolate chip cookies and myself
a brownie. Who knew Nestlé’s had their own cookie shop?
After declaring no outfit good enough for her
granddaughter, Mona ended up buying some stands for Kayla’s twin dolls while
the girls collected slips of paper throughout the store. We walked out the store very grateful that my
girls weren’t into American Girl Dolls and prayed they never would be at those
prices. Yikes! Though I did really dig the matching outfits
for doll and doll owner. Pretty awesome.
As we headed back to Atlanta, we got the message that the
picnic had been cancelled. So what I
wasn’t going to get any barbeque on the 4th? I had two requirements for the 4th
of July: barbeque and fireworks. That’s it.
Those dreams were fading quickly in front of my eyes.
Mona and I dropped the elders at the family hotel, then
we took the girls back to our hotel.
Where was the nearest bbq place to our hotel, we wondered. She called Mort to see where he was with our
boys. He said he would come pick us up,
so we could see his hotel room and go to Centennial Park to watch the
fireworks. I am not, was not, have never
been a fan of public firework displays.
I liked doing them myself, watching the blooming flowers spin around,
changing colors, but it looked like that wasn’t happening this year so I had to
make do with what we had.
Mort came and we followed him back across town to get to
his hotel, the tallest building in Atlanta.
We checked out the Presidential suite and it was just like the rich
homes on HGTV. Why would you build a two
story hotel room and it only has two bedrooms?!
What sort of sense does that make?
Yes, it was cool to have the Jacuzzi bathtub next to the window so you
could have a view of downtown Atlanta.
And yes, it was cool to see the bathtub inside the enclosed in shower, I
assumed the shower must have had steaming capabilities. That was one cool bathroom and who doesn’t
love circular staircases like in the kitchen on Different Strokes, but really
on two bedrooms?
Mort offered to order pizza since we looked down on
Centennial Park from his suite and knew we had missed our window of opportunity
to watch the fireworks from there. We
would have to watch them from the suite and look out the window. He tried to order pizza, but because of all
the security for the park it would take up to two hours to get to us. So being the awesome big brother that he is,
he and Renee went on foot in search of food, promising to bring back whatever
they found. We were starving, so
whatever they brought back sounded good.
The kids enjoyed running up and down the staircase,
playing the Wii on the large screen TV in the family room, and sadly “playing”
on the baby grand piano. I had to put a
stop to their playing or I might have lost my mind, and I couldn’t hear what JR
was saying on Dallas.
Then we turned and found a 4th of July
celebration on TV, Georgia Salutes America. It was a local broadcast going out live from
Centennial Park across the street. They
had singers from different branches of the military perform. It was pretty cool. Then it turned sad when I saw the host was Jann
Carl. Poor Jann, was this what her
career had become? Hosting a 4th
of July show in the ATL? Really?!?! I could have cried for her. But for Jann’s sake I stayed positive, at
least she wasn’t hosting from Savannah or some other lesser city. And at least she had a job.
Every time I saw fireworks on the TV, I yelled to
everyone to go to the window. The kids
would turn around and watch the fireworks until they ended, then they turned
their attention back to the video games and the chasing games. There was a pretty cool end to the concert
and we were so high up that we could see the fireworks being set off on the
roofs of neighboring roof tops. This
would have been a cool place to be on 12/31/99.
Mort and Renee returned with the food, Mexican for the
adults, and pizza for the kids. We hung
out and ate, then around 11PM, the girls, Mona, and I left the boys behind
again and went back to our hotel.
I wasn’t able to eat the bbq, I wanted, but I was able to
watch fireworks and hear my children, niece, and nephews’ excitement as they
watched, and most importantly, I got to hang with
people I love endlessly. Not a bad 4th, though to be honest
a BBQ would have made the day awesome, even without the blooming flowers.
I didn't take any pics on the 4th, so I'm posting the pics Jory took at the family reunion event the daybefore of his sister and cousins.
No comments:
Post a Comment