the ocean on Saturday:

On Saturday Keith, Stan, Natessa, and I went to Ocean Shores - about an hour-15 from Olympia. The beach is pretty over-crowded with cars driving all over it... especially on a sunny saturday... so we drove south a bit to Damon Point State Park which was much less crowded. There's a sand/bar spit that's a mile or two long. We hiked it. In a few pictures you can see the Olympic Mtns in the background:

Yesterday I spent the late afternoon/evening working at Nick's fireworks stand. Yesterday was opening day but not too busy. Apparently it's insanity on the 4th...

Nick beckons potential customers to the stand:
The selection...
Here's my personal favorite product - a innocent looking penguin with a defense mechanism that sprays sparks out of its face... I pointed it out to nearly every customer... and finally someone bought a pair.


I did a little better selling roman candles. Here you see me pointing out some precautionary measures to take while operating explosives:

We stayed open til 10:00 PM, which is about when the sun goes down in the summer here: