Fourth of July

I really love the 4th of July. Really bad. Last year I went to San Antonio to see Barrett during his training, so this year it was nice to have all my babies again to make things extra festive. We started our day at the city parade. I love a good small town parade! At least usually I do. This one was terrible. A no energy crowd watched people drive by in SUVs. Occasionally someone campaigned or protested. Where were the marching bands? The high school cheerleaders? The candy? The festive atmosphere? Laine was the only one I heard chanting "USA!" She didn't seem to notice the lack of excitement and faithfully waved her flag until the final car crept past. To be fair, we were late, so maybe the first half had all the cool stuff.

Henry was festive too, and did manage to get a few pieces of candy from the one person who passed it out, so he was jazzed about that. Charlie was there too. He loves America!

We picked up some firecrackers (that we still have yet to use) and headed to 7/11 for some slurpees. Of course there was much singing all the way. Grand Old Flag is always a favorite, plus I made the kids learn the Army song, about how it's always rolling along. The Johnsons invited us over for some delicious barbecue before heading over to the fireworks show. Here are Henry and Connor, and Laine and Sadie enjoying some ice cream. Yum.

Next it was off to the local celebration and fireworks show where we met up with some more friends. There were lots of bouncy play things for the kids (Laine destroyed a really big obstacle course to the amusement of mom and dad, who were both ready to come to her rescue ) and skydivers too!

My favorite thing on the 4th is the fireworks show set to music. Patriotic tunes always make me cry, and these fireworks were lovely. The music was...odd. It seemed to be assembled by a 15 year old girl - lots of bad pop songs and one AC/DC song (her dad probably made her include it), which we decided to count as patriotic. I had to laugh at the randomness when the Beatles song "You Say it's Your Birthday" came on (British invasion sound all too relevant?), and then laugh even more when the grand finale went down about 20 seconds into it. Cut music, show over. It gets dark really late here—the show started at 10:15—but the kids were great all night long. Even Charlie, who didn't fall asleep until I put him in the stroller to walk back to the car.

The children settle in for some fireworks.

Fine citizens.

I am proud my husband has decided to serve his country, and proud to be an American. God bless the USA!