I don’t know what it is about the 4th of July in a small town, but I love it. Maybe it is nostalgia. Or maybe it is the momentary escape from my frustration with the government, this presidential election, and all the crap going on right now. For one day, the 4th of July, I don’t think about it. I love being surrounded by real people. People with common sense and good values. I love hearing the good things about our country for a day, rather than all the America-bashing that has been going on the past few years.

And I love to see our brave soldiers and veterans honored. At the parade we went to, someone was handing out little flags to all the kids. At the base of each flag was taped a slip of paper with the name, hometown, and date of death of a brave soldier who died protecting us.

Here is our little Stinkbug at the parade in my neighboring hometown.

In the evening, we have a spot on the Snake River where we hang out until the fireworks start. We got a workout, trying to keep our little Monkey away from the water.

Stinkbug was excited all day to bring out the sparklers sprinklers. After about 18 times trying to correct her, I gave up and was calling them sprinklers by the end of the night. She loved twirling her sprinklers around as she danced.

We ended the night watching a fantastic fireworks show over the river, put on by a local company. It is synchronized to music, and is the biggest show west of the Mississippi. Not bad for small town Idaho, huh?

The only dark spot on the evening? (Quite literally.) Monkey pooped out of her diaper mid-fireworks show. On my lap no less. Her snacking began at the parade at 10:00 am, and ran for about twelve hours. It was the one day in my life that I did not put the brakes on the sugar consumption. And boy I paid. I guess sometimes it pays to be anal. At least I had a great fireworks show providing enough light to clean up the mess.

I just realized last night while doing Stinkbug’s hair that I’ve been using the same hairspray for about 20 years. Although in my teen years, I went through much more of it. Yep, you know what I’m talking about. I had… the claw. I’m about 6′1″, but was over 6′3″ with the claw.

How that hair style co-existed with the weather of Idaho is beyond me. Talk about resilience. I’d say about 80% of the girls in my high school sported the claw.

My hair spray of choice? Rave. While I do like Paul Mitchell hairspray, I always end up coming back to Rave. It’s cheap and it does the job. Although the job now is more about pigtails for my girls than for maintaining the height of my hair. In the 80’s and early 90’s I went through a bottle of hairspray every couple months. Now my two girls and I go through maybe one bottle a year.

What cosmetics or products have you stuck with over the years? Is there something you love, despite it not being a fancy brand? Come on, don’t be shy. There must be someone out there still using ‘Wet n Wild’ makeup. (Is that still around?) Fess up. What are your favorites?