instant happiness

Independence Day, July 4th, the 4th of July...I'll call it all of the above and I'll call it my favorite.  4th of July weekend is the greatest...I know I've probably mentioned it about 50 times before but I won't stop.  It's my favorite because the way we celebrate it, it's everything I love: summer, swimming, food, sparkly things, and all things red, white and blue (yes, I am my mother's child).  It's not directly based on religion so I don't have to feel bad about "not recognizing what it's really about" (though I noticed last year that some of my Facebook friends ARE a bit confused about what it's about/where it originated...but we won't go into that).
Here we have a handful of images from 4th of July weekend, 2009.  I came across them on my hard drive as I was searching for original files of a few photos I'm submitting to Getty Images...even though these photos are old and saturated, they still make me really happy (and several of them are still favorites of mine, like the black eyed susans second from the bottom which are currently hanging on my wall).  I guess only a few of these are your typical Independence Day shots...the rainy day winery ones don't quite fit (but they were on that weekend and I still love them big time).

*Title info: see in that first photo on the left the box that says "Instant Happiness?"  I can't remember what that particular firework did, but come on...with a name like that how could it NOT have come home with me?  I'm a fan of all the fireworks that aren't too scary to light off...sparklers, black snakes, fountains that shoot all kinds of sparkly stuff into the air...