Independence Day 2011

This years Independence Day was almost a total bust. We woke up super early on Monday the 4th to go see the hot air balloons because I made the mistake of mentioning them to Evelynn and then having her get so excited that I promised we would go see them. And then we all went to bed like 2 hours past our bedtime because we had family over for dinner and then neighbors over until 10:00. But we were up and over to the field by 7:00 am, only to have the balloons not take off because of high winds. It was cool to see them all inflated and then blown over by a gale force wind that came through around 7:45. Darth Vader squished a few people. :) We then walked over to the parade route and found a spot in about 15 minutes. I will never understand why people get so uptight about staking out "their spot" every year. For 7 years I've seen the parade, or at least part of it, and this is the earliest we ever arrived (only out of necessity because of the balloons) and we've always gotten a decent spot. Usually it's been "I hear the parade starting, lets head over!" Anyway, it was nice because it was over cast and even a bit rainy, so it was nice and cool and not blazing hot as in years past. It was interesting to be the at the beginning of the parade route this year. In years past we were at the very end, and there is a big difference in people enthusiasm levels at the beginning versus the end of the parade. I think we'll try and get beginning route seats from now on.


After the parade, we wound our way back home and into much needed naps. Then we went and bought fireworks. I know, I know, it seems dumb to buy fireworks on the 4th since EVERYTHING is picked over, but we didn't really have a choice. And is it just me, or have fireworks become so much more expensive than when I was a kid?! My brothers and I were talking, and we think that maybe Missouri just has cheaper fireworks. I swear I could go in to the fireworks warehouse (no dinky tents in MO) with 2 weeks of allowance and come out with 2 hours worth of fireworks. But that didn't really matter this year because it turns out my kids are terrified of fireworks. Evelynn would not even hold a sparkler, and Eloise took a lot of convincing to try. But just in case our kids were on the fence about fireworks, Doug and I made sure to push them over the edge into total terror with our last firework of the evening. We'd done all the dinky ones and had saved "the big one" we bought for the end. Since I had gotten the date of Stadium of Fire wrong and missed the Owlz baseball game with fireworks this year, I was really really looking forward to some pyrotechnics, but these turned out to be to upclose even for me. Doug followed the instructions on the box, lighting the fuse with 30+ feet of free space around the box and then ran back to the house and the girls were on the porch. The first 4 rockets went into the sky no problem, but the 5th one knocked the box over, pointing the rockets at our neighbors car. Three or four zoomed off towards their parked cars, and then the box flipped and started firing at the house, aka, US. Luckily they mostly hit the bushes and didn't go onto the porch where the girls were huddled, holding each other and screaming, but one did go right between Doug's legs and before he could jump out of the way it exploded and scorched/cut his leg. It didn't cause a lot of damage but it's still healing. I was in the side yard holding Michael and laughing/screaming the whole time. It was funny because no one really got hurt, and nothing was damaged (except Doug's leg. Sorry honey.) Even our neighbors cars were fine. But the girls took 30 minutes to calm down, and they want nothing to do with fireworks ever again. I'm really bummed about that since fireworks are one of my favorite things..... oh well. By that time it was past bedtime, and so we all headed in. Definitely not my favorite 4th of July, but we'll have many many more to come, hopefully with lots of fireworks and less tears. :)