Swimming, fireworks, and parades are a normal activity for summer and the celebration of the 4Th of July- but in Alaska there's a twist. My children have been literally begging to go swimming at a lake in Anchorage that we saw on the news one evening. The average temperature has been around 66. Far too cold in my mind to go swimming outside. However we finally decided to go and let the kids see that is was too cold. It was 66 degrees outside and they loved it. Goose Lake is the equivalent of a lake we used to swim at in Colorado only this one has life guards, lots more beach, and at least this year is much cleaner. We had to stop going to Bear Creek Lake because of the goose poop. Here we did not see any animal feces and only a few ducks which the life guards were zealous about keeping people from feeding or playing with - no interaction. The kids got in the water and stayed. Amazing- it just isn't that warm. We rented a paddle boat and took the kids around the lake. Eric had to see what a roped off section of the lake was on the other side opposite the swimming area. When we finally were able to read the signs it warned the roped off area was a landing strip.

There was a small parade in downtown Anchorage it went in a circle around two city blocks. It had a few floats, lots of antique cars, a bunch of beauty queens, and a ton of military representation. It had a small town feel except no one was throwing candy.

The fireworks were scheduled to start at 12:00 AM. We were in bed and they woke me and our dog Bessie up. She is afraid of fireworks and last year she clawed a hole through a wall she was so scared. So I got up to watch her and looked at the fireworks. It wasn't dark and fireworks just aren't as impressive. I tried to take a picture of the fireworks but either my camera or my finger was too slow. But here's a picture of how dark it was outside.

My favorite quote of the week: We were discussing how this was our first holiday away from our family and friends. Hailey said "I wish we had family to spend this holiday with". We all laughed (the three of us ) and asked her if we counted.