4th of July

Ahhhh...the midpoint of summer, the 4th of July, a day for blowing stuff up with fireworks and having lots of fun shooting them off, even when they come close to hitting you. What is the deal with fireworks and why there are so scary to people.
Tonite, a big group of us went to Sewell Park to watch the river parade and firework show, I was very disappointed with the parade, it was horrible, the parade consisted of 3 or 4 crappy floats, and some people on innertubes. Then afterwards, we watched a huge display of mortar fireworks that was put on by the city, and it was totally amazing, it was about 15 minutes long of bery pretty bombs blowing up in the air. The air was shaking with the explsoions of the mortars, and the burning gun powder filled the air, and with every explosion, you could see the smoke lines from previous explosions. I love this time of year, because the little kid in me comes out in full force when fireworks come out, in the past I have been known the spend over $100 on fireworks, but not this year, I saved my money and refused to spend money on fireworks, but I still had tons of fun shooting them off, beacuse Reid Fisher bought alot of fireworks, and we went out to Luna and MW Rice's summer house, and shot alot of them off. But MW Rice, Jessie, Sandy, and Lindsey Mika stayed behind because they don't really like fireworks, and have never lit one off, and don't trust them. So they stayed there in the house while we went and shot them all off, almost hitting each other alot, and also hitting a few of our own cars, and chairs, the night was totally awesome.
Yesterday about 21 of us went tubing down on the Guadalupe River, and it is so hard to get things going in big groups. We were outside HEB waiting for ppl to show up for about an hour, then we took forever getting to jerry's 2 on River road, then forever discusing who needed a tube, and whatnot. But once we got on the river, we were tubing for about 4 hours. It was a very slow float, because we haven't had ANY rain here for over a month, and so in some places we got stuck on rocks, and had to get up to move around them and continue our float. Then after words we went to Amy's to BBQ, and all hung out there, and it was a blast. Toobin is soooo much fun, and a great way to spend a hot TEXAS afternoon.
So, on a sadder note, saturday afternoon I recieved some horrible news from my mom. She found out that her mom, my Nana, has really bad cancer. She is a hard-willed woman, and doens't like help or to go to the doctor. So she prolly hasn't been to the doctor in a while before saturday, so it was a HUGE surprise. Saturday morning she woke up and couldn't walk, was very weak, and seemed very confused, so her neighbor Lucy, who's daughter was in town checked on her and her daighter called my mom who was already on her way to check on Nana, because she pinched a nerve a couple weeks before at work. So my mom got there, and insisted that Nana was going to the hospital, and Nana didn't want to go, and mom said she was either taking her herself or calling an ambulance, so they went to the ER, and they ran some test and found out that Nana's body was very taken over by cancer, she has cancer in her brain, both lungs, and many other places in her body. Now this isn't just a little bit of cancer, this is stage 4 cancer, and stage 4 is the worst, there are 4 different levels of cancer, and 4 is the worst, so there is really no hope at this point in time. She is know currently in ICU in Houston, and I am going home on Thursday to spend some time with her. I wanted to go home saturday night as soon as I found out, but my mom insisted that I wait until Sunday, and she would call me if anything changed, since nana was feeling better with an IV in her, so I told my mom that I really wanted to come home and see Nana, and she was like, well you did just see her at my wedding, so thats good, and I thought to my self, that was a month ago, I need to see her again. So Thursday will be that day I get to see her, because I took a couple of days off because Marty was coming into town, but know I am going home. So I tried different things this week to get my mind off of worrying about Nana, but the more I thought about her and talked, the easier it got to talk about it. I started to feel bad about going out to have a good time with my friends, while my Nana was lying in a hospital bed, but I decided there was nothing I could do about it sitting in my room. Hopefully she won't be in to much pain. Now she can go home to heaven to see Paw-Paw who died of a stroke about 7 years ago. I can only imagine what that reunion in heaven Nana will have with Jesus, God, Paw-Paw, and her mother and father.
Nana and Paw-Paw took me and my brother on many adventures when we were we little lads. They had us out running through the woods and deserts of Texas looking for snakes, turtles, and other reptiles. Even when we all crossed the Rio Grande in a little rowboat that had a hole in it, Nana and Paw-Paw had something fun to do. I will greatly miss Nana, and I still miss Paw-Paw all the time, espically when I see nature photographs, snakes, animals, and other things that remind me of him. I loved him so much, and I love Nana soo much, and it will be hard this year adjsuting to doing family things with out her, since we lived so close, she could easily come down to see us. I know that there is nothing in the near future that will make me miss seeing Nana, as I missed seeing my Paw-Paw the days before he died and also missing the funeral, because I was back-packing across the lower Rocky mountains in New Mexico, at the scout camp Philmont, and my mom didn't want to ruin this once in a lifetime camping trip, so I didn't find out about his death until about 2 weeks later, so I really want to be there to see Nana before she goes home. I hope it happens. I love you Nana. The only bad thing is the timing, all this is going on around my birthday, so I know going out and doing something on wednesday will be tough, knowing that Nana is laying in a little bed, not being able to move much, waiting for me and my brother to show up to see her. I know she is hanging on because she knows we are coming down this weekend to see her. I know it. I love her soo much. Well, I am going to bed, please pray for me and my family, and my Nana. Thanks alot.