Go Fourth

Every year, we've put the girls in this crazy Uncle Sam hat and snapped a picture of them in their patriotic attire. You can see last year's photos here. It's a fun little tradition and a bit of a growth chart, too. I can't believe how grown up Big Sis looks:

The Fourth of July is an interesting day around here.

Our neighborhood is full of people who seem to embrace any opportunity to light things on fire. The celebration of Independence Day usually runs for at least a week.

We've just returned from the beach (pictures to come) so we've missed most of the warm ups. But we didn't miss the firecrackers starting WAY too early in the afternoon. Nope, those came right as expected. Right at naptime.

The neighborhood kids have been playing with dangerous explosives all evening. Hubby even saw them light strips of toilet paper when they got bored with bottle rockets. We tend to stay out of the front and side yards at this time.

And right before the sun set, we looked at each other and rolled our eyes as one neighbor made his usual celebratory ride around the neighborhood. This year it was a four-wheeler instead of a Moped. We didn't see if he kept the tradition of being shirtless...

Still, when the sun was down and the kids went in (or were joined by their dads) there's no better place to be. We ate apple cobbler and got ready for the show. Three of our neighbors must have spent a small fortune on the "good kind" of fireworks. And our fantastic view of the mountains provided a panorama of sparkling surprises all around the area. We let two tired, giggly girls stay up to point them out to us, saying things like "See dat? It's bwoo!" or "Look Mom! That one looks like the star of Bethlehem, only it's not the right color!" or "Over dayerw!" or "I think that was made of red Pixie Dust!" as we huddled together in the dark and scanned the sky for the next marvel.

After we got the girls in bed, Hubs and I watched a local amusement park's fireworks extravaganza right from our bedroom window.

So, we might still have a few more days of picking up bottle rocket sticks in our front lawn or praying the M-80's don't disturb naptime.

But I think it's a fair trade.