Happy, Happy 4th

I love fireworks. I love wedding receptions. Today, I had both. :)

Last year on this day I was up in Boston listening to the Pops Orchestra and watching the most spectacular fireworks display I have ever seen, while spending some crazy travel time with my best friend. This year, we were driving home from a wedding and since my parents live out in the country, everyone gets their own fireworks, and we drove home through a 360-degree fireworks display. It was awesome. Cars were pulling over to the side of the road so that they didn't cause accidents watching while driving.

We came to Texas, and got in yesterday evening, to attend the wedding of one of Eli's former residents when he was an RA at Baylor Plaza. It was perhaps the most benign ceremony that did not include any mentions of God, Jesus, or the Holy Spirit. The minister did refer to marriage as a covenant, but she never mentioned with whom. And at the end, just before the couple walked down the aisle as husband and wife she threw in a gratuitous "Trust the Lord with all your heart..." verse that seemed like an afterthought and didn't fit in. Thank goodness for wedding receptions.

I LOVE wedding receptions. No, it's not only about the free food. It's mostly about the dancing. Let there be dancing, indeed. I think Eli and I should hire ourselves out as professional wedding reception guests, ice breakers if you will. I'll break the ice and start the buffet line. And we'll break the ice and start the dancing. We did both of those things tonight and just got the ball a-rolling.

The two BEST wedding receptions I have ever attended were Michelle & Javier's, and Erin & Doug's. Talk about some awesome work-up-a-sweat dance opportunities. Also, M & S's wedding on 7/7/07, but that doesn't really count because I was married to a groomsman, though we did have a great time and M told me he is glad that I am his sister-in-law after seeing me dance. That is probably one of my happiest, feel-good, heck-yeah-I'm-a-Beaver-moments. For those of you who have never seen me dance, I must tell you that I'm a dancing MACHINE. I love it. I love the cheesiness of it. Wedding reception dancing is very different from, say, Dancing with the Stars, which I also love, or from hip-hop know-how and formal dance choreography, with which I have minimal experience. Wedding receptions require straight up cheese, and I'm all over it. Thankfully, my husband is not [too] embarassed by me. [I steal my moves from cheese-tastic dance movies and dance sequences in non-dance movies--Grease--, and from other dancers who are messing around with "the sprinkler" and such classic moves--thank you John M. for getting me started, lo those many years ago.]

So, today was overall a spectacular day because I got to do two of the simplest things that make me the happiest--watch fireworks and dance like a maniac who was let out of the institution on a field trip. Aahhh. This, my friends, is truly the life.

Cheers!