4th of July is about fireworks

There's something really satisfying about spending the day at the beach. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but when it came time to decide where to watch the 4th of July fireworks, there was no question that I wanted to watch from the beach. Luckily I was in LA where the the beach is slightly more hospitable than the frigid northern California coastline. A simple sweater (instead of a space suit) was all that was needed to keep comfortable on the Santa Monica sand. We saw several firework shows off in the distance, and Shantal sang patriotic songs (I'm sorry, but I just had to tell on her!). After already stuffing my face with all kinds of food at our lovely little beach picnic, I went home and ate about a gallon of different ben and jerry's ice creams. America really is the land of plenty.

Here's the Santa Monica Pier at night:


Full pics here: http://picasaweb.google.com/juliej/Santa_monica_july2006