Roots and Branches

We went to see the fireworks in the OT on Thursday night and were really pleasantly surprised by how nice it was. I was expecting an overwhelming crowd, tons of mosquitos, and a less than impressive firework show. What we found was a huge crowd, but plenty of space for people to move about and 'set up camp', no bugs (amazing!), and a really impressive firework display. I think we'll plan to see them there every year from now on, instead of fighting traffic and parking woes at the beach or in Red Bank.

What struck me most about this excursion, though, was how many familiar people we ran into. The realtor who sold us our house, parents and kids we know from daycare, the girl who occaisionally babysits our girls, our neighbors, friends from the beach, parents and kids from the J...it seemed as though every time we turned around, we were bumping into someone we knew. Of course, having both grown up in the area, we have a lot of 'roots' here, but all of the people we ran into were people that we have met only since we moved to town. So, I feel like after nearly three years here, we have really started to sprout 'branches', too. It feels good to have a community connection.