Where has the summer gone? July is almost half over already and we're heading downhill fast towards the holiday season. But before that we'll have an election and there are some interesting races shaping up, even though it is a non-presidential year.

In the meantime, Christmas in July has become a promotion that seems to get bigger every year. The networks show Christmas movies and stores are attempting to rival Black Friday with some of their July bargains.

We went from red, white and blue to red, white and green and then the eventual New Years Eve fireworks. But this year was probably a record-breaking Fourth of July fireworks season for us. It all started with Mother Nature's natural fire works from a thunderstorm to the south of us in Faulk County. The lightning flashed from side to side, repeatedly lighting up the horizon like a strobe lamp. And this went on for a long time as the storm was very slowly progressing from west to east.

Then we saw the Mina Lake fireworks on July 3 and they were indeed very impressive this year. Normally that would be it for us, but we got a rare opportunity to see and hear July 4 fireworks on the North Dakota state capital lawn with live classical music played by the Bismarck-Mandan Symphony. That was memorable to say the least and very impressive and probably the longest fireworks display that I've ever seen. Needless to say, getting out of our parking lot afterwards took nearly as long, but was well worth the wait!