Fun on the 4th of July

Today was the 4th of July. We didn't have to work. Bill got up early and went to Jake's house. He came back for me because he wanted to show me these adorable baby chicks. They were so funny, jumping up and down trying to fly, cheeping all of the time. I hope our chicks are born soon, it will be such fun to watch them grow. We came back home and had coffee and watched tv. Pretty soon we got bored, made some sandwichs and headed for Carlyle lake. It was just wonderful to sit in the warm breeze and eat lunch, watching the crowds of people and little kids play in the water. It was a warm sunny day..........for a while. We laughed and had a great time. For once we were having fun while everyone else was instead of working. Pretty soon a storm started brewing, first there were just a few clouds, then a huge shelf cloud appeared. It was really impressive and had some circulation going on with it. The stupid people in boats on the water waited until it was too late to get their boats out of the water. If you look at the last picture (with purple martin houses), you can see the boats and the huge storm clouds closing in on them. About 1 second after I took that picture it started to storm, lightning and all. So Bill and I went to the visitor's center across from the lake. It was very interesting. Carlyle Lake is named after a famous English author, Sir Carlyle, since the first settlers in the area were mostly English. We ended up the day with dinner at McDonalds ( the hamburgers were really crappy....:P, but the apple, grape and walnut salad with yogurt was delicious, just lots of chewing though. It kept raining after we got home, so we just decided to stay in and watch the fireworks on tv from the St. Louis Fair. So that was my day and I enjoyed it so much...tomorrow........back to work. Here are a few pictures from today,












I meant to leave this picture larger , but rather than delete it from above, I will just repost it. The cloud formation is just amazing.