Go America!

Josh really loves fireworks, so the 4th of July is a favorite holiday for him.

It might be because Josh loves it so much, or it might be because we had no more milk for our cereal, but to celebrate we started our morning with festive breakfast.

Last year we accidentally stumbled upon Sandy City's giant all day celebration and it instantly became a tradition.

So this year we loaded the kids (and ridiculous amount of stuff) in the car and headed for the party early.

Let me tell you one thing about parades in the evening. There is a good reason only one city in the whole state does an evening parade. And that reason is the sunshine. And the sweat. And the 98-thousand-degrees-and-no-rain-in-37-days aspect of July in Utah.

But we're hardcore and got there early enough for a spot on the right side of the street. Which makes for crappy pictures, but a fun parade experience. And as I have  to remind myself daily, it's fun even if we have crappy pictures.

Tommy was a big fan of the parade and especially of the flag guy who came and gave EVERYONE "even John B!" a flag.

John lazily whacked the pin wheel for the first 15 minutes, then demanded food because it was bedtime. 

But he was pretty mad when he realized the regular bedtime noise (Tommy, come get in the tub! Tommy, stop splashing. That's one.....that's two..... Which jammies do you want? Tommy, Tommy. Cinder-TOOOOMMMMMY!) was going to be replaced with sirens and cheering and hooting and hollering.

But when Dad gave him a graham cracker and let him sit up, he was suddenly happy again.

Josh is infinitely better at calming babies this age than I am. I am infinitely better at calming Tommy's age (and personality) than he is. So we divided and conquered.

See? Conquered.

The parade was awesome, great bands, more bagpipes than I can count and hats and sheriff stickers for everyone!

We had awesome parade neighbors who were happy to share their candy and cheered loud enough with us to get plenty for all of us. They were kind and cooperative and didn't mind our crying baby and we didn't mind their 11 year old ball thief who got every single cool thing they gave out. 

After the parade was the concert and sitting around part of the night. That is my favorite part. But with 2 kids and 2 adults I'm afraid there was more dividing and conquering. I'd run to the car while Josh watched the kids, I'd watch the kids while he found a bathroom, he'd watch the kids while I got food & water. It was painfully typical of our lives. 

But while we were together we had a grand time. Except that our Parade Neighbors were not our Lawn Neighbors and the LNs should have taken a lesson from the PNs. The LNs reserved roughly 2 square feet for all 4 of the 17 year-old lanky man-children. The teenage boys (naturally) wanted to wrestle and wound up doing so on our blanket, which was both annoying and dangerous for the infant among us. Josh and I passive-agressively stretched out as big as we could during fireworks so our feet with right next to their heads (on our blanket). See? Now aren't you glad you didn't pick a fight with us? We're so mean.

Somehow John stayed awake this entire time. I suppose it's not really surprising considering the excitement (noise) level of those around us, but considering he normally wakes up at 4pm and goes to bed at 6:30pm the fact that he was still awake at 8 was surprising to me. 

And when he ditched the pants at 9 I was confident he'd crash and burn soon.

But he was still awake when I decided to make us take a family picture 15 minutes later. 

And at 10:15 when my camera battery died trying to take a fireworks picture.

And clear until 10:45 when we put him in the car to go home. At which point he zonked out and slept through the most frustrating escape from gridlock we've ever been in. The frustration was likely exaggerated by the driver's full bladder (I wonder how many accidents per year are caused by full bladders?). Although we've exited many crowded parking lots we've never seen the crazy shenanigans we saw last night.

It's still a bit crazy to me that cities did fireworks this year since parking your car on grass is OBVIOUSLY too dangerous, but we watched them soak the field around the launch zone for a solid 45 minutes before beginning the show. And clearly nobody was opposed to the celebration. So......whatevs, it's cool. [shrugs]

We came home with pockets full of candy, heads full of memories and a camera full of pictures to prove it. 

Happy Birthday America.