Get ready! Friday night should be clear and cool, as usual, perfect weather for the annual 4th of July fireworks. Foster City celebrates the 4th of July in Big Style.  Start your morning off with the annunal Lion’s Club pancake breakfast, enter your kids in their own parade and plan on spending the day around Leo Ryan Park enjoying the holiday. Play games on the grassy meadow, picnic while listening to the musical entertainment that will take place during the afternoon and have a safe and sane 4th.  The Foster City Lion’s Club will be selling food all day long.  It’s a major fundraiser for them, so help them out and buy breakfast or lunch at the park.

Bring your dog down to the park and enter him or her into the dog show and while there, have them considered for the Milk-Bone 100th Anniversary SpokesDog contest!  Could your dog be the one?  Here’s your chance to find out and have some fun, too. Should it be the winner, they’ll you’ll get a $100,000 contract from Milk Bone.  That’s nothing to chew on!

There is a $5 registration fee for each of the 6 categories in the show and you can enter in more than one category, too.

1. Best Trick
2. Most Unique
3. Do/Owner Look-a-like
4. Most Beautiful or Handsome
5. Most Patriotic Costume

Don’t have a dog?  No matter, come on down to Leo Ryan Park and watch the fun.  Registration for the dog show is between 10:30 and 1 PM at the Rec Center. The show begins at 2 PM.

Don’t forget to bring blankets, warm jackets, plenty of food and drinks and your camera so you can stay the day and be ready for the fireworks that begins at dark, around 9 PM over the lake.  Stake out a good spot in the park and you’ll have your day taken care of!

Can’t get to Foster City?  Redwood City is having their 69th Annual 4th of July Parade and Fireworks.  Their parade features floats, marching bands and loads of excitement with Miss California appearing.  Guaranteed to be a great day for the family, too. Fireworks start at 9:30 PM over the harbor.

If you place yourself correctly in the San Mateo, Belmont or San Carlos hills you can watch the fireworks shows from both  Foster City and  Redwood City without fighting traffic.

Traffic tip for Foster City: arrival is easy, departure is not.  Plan of waiting a while before trying to drive home.  The city of Foster City swells from about 30,000 to 100,000 on this one night.  Patience is a virtue, so wait a while before trying to drive home.  You’ll be happy you did.

Central San Mateo County offers a couple of places to see great fireworks shows on the fourth of July.  Foster City has a full day of Fourth of July activities beginning with a pancake breakfast and running through to the fireworks display in the Leo Ryan Park lake.  Hillsdale Blvd. and Shell Blvd. are closed all day to allow for foot traffic.  It’s a great show and worth the traffic to go see it.

Redwood City has had a Fourth of July Parade for as long as I can remember.  Great fun for the entire family and it’s held downtown in the morning.  They too have a wonderful fireworks display done in the harbor area.  If you find the right location in the hills you can see both Foster City and Redwood City fireworks in secession.

If you’re out on the coast, Half Moon Bay has a Fourth of July Parade and a fireworks display in the evening.  Great fun sitting on the beach watching this if the skys are clear.

With one of the driest years in a while California is a tinderbox and it is amazing that fireworks are still be sold anywhere in the state.  Somehow San Bruno thinks they are able to sell them without repercussion.  I was in the San Mateo Target last week and they, too, are selling fireworks.  What’s up with this?  We know these are dangerous so why doesn’t the state ban them?  I think it’s time to have our legislators submit a bill to outlaw fireworks except for public displays.  What do you think?  If  you agree, write your Assemblyman and State Senator.  Maybe we can make change here and stop the severe injuries that occur around the Fourth, let alone the fires.