Oh say, can you see

It was quite nice to have the celebration of America's independence on a Wednesday this year.... breaking up the work week into two blocks of two days each with a day off in between is something I could most definitely get used to. We had a good old fashioned BBQ at our place today and a delicious spread of grub: hambugers, corn on the cob grilled with butter and garlic powder, baked beans, mango margaritas (thanks Browns!), fresh guacamole with chips (thanks Blaines!), and Jello cake. It was an ideal mix of good conversation, Scattegories, and gorging on food.
The Davis fireworks show ended the evening and was actually pretty impressive. Before the show, the mayor had everyone stand up and sing the national anthem and it was really cool to hear everyone singing along to a song that was written so long ago in a different era, yet it still instills the same sense of pride in being a citizen of this country. Over the past few days, I've had several conversations with people about some of our nation's biggest problems (the war in Iraq, health care crisis, the state of the education system, etc.) and yet I need to remember that even though America DOES has some major flaws to fix, we at least have the freedom and opportunity here to fix them.
So happy birthday America, my country 'tis of thee.