Gandalf's Fireworks

Happy Fourth of July to those of you who live in the US.  Here are some of my favorite literary fireworks (I know there from the movie...but that's ok)  Here are Gandalf's Fireworks from The Fellowship of the Ring

"squibs, crackers, backarrapas, sparklers, torches, dwarf-candles, elf-fountains, goblin-barkers and thunderclaps. They were all superb."

Happy Reading Everybody!

Books And Donuts And Fireworks And Books!

Hello all, I hope you had a wonderful weekend like I did, it was so good in fact that it started and ended at the bookstore!  We packed up to visit baby sis up in PA, but my Hubbin insisted that we stop at the book store on our way out of town, and who am I to argue.  I picked up a book I had been looking at for a while and then wandered the stacks while Hubbin finished his shopping.  Lo and behold, just like some mysterious force guided me to the spot, a perfect road trip book appeared.  I know, I know I have a whole list of books I'm supposed to be reading, but this one was PERFECT, it's called Helen and Troy's Epic Road Trip by A. Lee Martinez,  but more on that later when I ramble about it.  After the epic book buying trip of

awesomeness we proceeded to the eerily traffic free road and made to my sisters in record time which was both good and bad as I couldn't wait to see her, but wanted more time to read my new awesome book.  The weather was amazing, warm, breezy, sunny, low humidity, everything you want a summer day to be. Greeting my baby sis's psycho dogs and amazing Hubby we unpacked and watched my baby sis freak out over my new book.  Apparently she had just put the book on the list and was dying to read it, it's 'cause we're book twins.  We let the boys sit up front while baby sis and I sat in the back and discussed all the books we had read recently, we had a rousing discussion about the Divergent series which ended with the boys shaking their heads and laughing over our semi-coherent sentences that only we could understand.  Taking a break from books for a wonderful outdoor dinner, only to discover that the firework show had been moved to the next day due to the epic storms we had just had.  Somehow we convinced the boys to buy us our own fireworks and proceeded to scare all the cows in Amish country by setting them off in between bouts of tear inducing laughter.  Next day dawned to two dogs sitting on my chest and a quest for donuts.  My baby sis took us to the oldest running market in the US where they not only served the bestest coffee, but the most amazingly creative and tasty donuts.  Seriously we shared a S'mores donut, a bacon maple donut, a caramel pretzel donut, a cookies and cream donut, a fresh coconut cream donut and a creamsicle donut, all of which were

stupendous and had the added bonus of making my Hubbin a very happy boy.  Took the puppies on a walk, grilled out and watched the World Cup and then went back to try the fireworks show again.  Can I just say it was so worth it.  The theme was Wizard of Oz...which is perfect since I just finished reading it, and Pink Floyd the show was...words cannot describe the sheer perfection of it.  Needless to say we were all very happy campers.  Got home, caught some sleep, had some coffee, exchanged books and said our goodbyes :-( and back on the road we went.  Of course we can't just go straight home like normal people, so Hubbin took us to one of our favorite spots for lunch (garlic fries for the win) and it just happened to be next to a book store sooooo...yeah.  That brings us here and me writing this as quickly as I can so I can finish my awesome book of road trip awesomeness so I can ramble about it in the next couple of days!  Hope everybody else had a great weekend. Happy Reading Everybody!

Fireworks

I love fireworks, I try and watch them every chance I get and 4th of July is the best time to catch some amazing pyrotechnic displays.  Growing up my Mamma was the Queen of Fireworks, all of our friends would give her money and we would go buy morters and huge column shooters in vast amounts.  We would all gather at a private lake and Mamma and her designated rower would take the little rowboat and a four foot board out to the middle and shoot off our own private spectacular (and highly illegal) program.  I liked to make up names for all of the different fireworks and to this day think they look like fairies.  Here are a few books about these nifty fireworks.

Fireworks, Picnics, and Flags

Flags and Fireworks

The Pyrotechnist's Treasury

What are your favorite firework memories?  Do you prefer to watch or light?  Are you on the "banned from ever getting near anything even remotly explosive" list...or am I just special?