Happy 4th of July!

On the 4th of July, we gathered for "dinner and a show", in my mom's neighborhood park.

We hovered in the bits of shade from the little trees and the big red umbrella we brought.

For dinner we had BBQ pulled pork sandwiches, coleslaw, chips, watermelon, fruit salad, Candice's delicious potato salad and dessert--cupcakes, flag cake and red, white & blue Rice Crispy treats (with Fruit Loops) made by Amber.

Tyrel brought a friend, Deidra, to celebrate with us.

After dinner, I cut into the cake to reveal the flag inside.

Yay, it worked.. mostly. :)

When there was the slight hint that the sun might start setting, Dean ran and grabbed the fireworks from the car.

The kids enjoyed popping the SNAPS on the pavement.

Dean organized the firework stash and couldn't resist doing "just a few" before sunset.

Notice the big, black spot, to the left of the snake.

There's a story behind it...

I had a job. I was designated the "Sparkler Lady". Dean put me in charge of distributing the sparklers to the anxious kids all around me. I had a handful of sparklers in my left and the lighter in my right. As I was trying to keep up with the demand of lighting and distributing sparklers, something happened. I didn't actually see it happen and can't recall the details, but somehow a spark from a lit sparkler jumped over to my handful of sparklers and lit the whole bunch on fire!

At first, I thought "Oh good, there's only a few that got lit." But just as I though that, the flames got bigger and engulfed the rest. It got so hot and bright that I had to drop it, to avoid getting burned. It excited the kids (and possibly a few of the adults). As the heap of sparklers burned on the ground, some of the kids cried, while others got crazy and excited.

Our handful of sparklers, now equaled a big, black spot on the ground.

Sorry kids.

No more sparklers.

I think I worked myself out of a job.

I don't know that I'll ever be trusted again to be "Sparkler Lady".

Oh darn.

Dean put on an entertaining show (only trying to burn up the whole lot twice, by getting a lit firework too close to the stash) that lasted several minutes.

We had a great view of all the neighborhood fireworks too.

We ooo-ed and ahh-ed at our fountains, as well as all the BIG airborne displays around us.

We decided that we liked the "fish fountains" the best... bright colors and cool sparks and flames.

Happy 4th of July!