Happy Birthday America!

We had a wondrous day yesterday! My baby brother and his family are down visiting, so we played together and enjoyed time with brothers and cousins. We had lots of great grilled food - always important on the fourth! And then we went to see one of our many surrounding city's fireworks shows. The boys were all very excited by the lights and the sounds. Well, Jonathan actually wasn't let in on the secret, so when the fun began, he was at first somewhat frightened by darkness broken with loud booms and bright sparks. Once he adjusted, he enjoyed them as well. Brennan was quick to remind everyone that "Today is America's birthday!".

I must admit I am immensely jealous after listening to everyone's fun episodes with personal fireworks. A fond memory from childhood is standing by my Mom or Dad as they lit each firework and then dashing away with them as it was lit. Then the sparks and variations from individual fireworks would delight us all. It was thrilling to each pick out a few of our favorites, and the ones that you buy are all so different from each other, unlike the similar booms of the public shows. Of course Dad would always just quip "Lighting fireworks is like lighting a twenty on fire and watching it burn." And we would always reply "Yea, but would the twenty turn all sorts of brilliant colors and sparks?". Never got any argument there!

But that would not be us - we live in an incorporated part of Houston. BLAH! The boys had sparklers at New Year's and LOVED THEM! So I tried to talk my DH into purchasing just those, but ever the good guy that he is, he checked the city's ban list and yes, sparklers were included. So the head of our house lovingly did not allow ever eager me to lead us into temptation - I love him!

And maybe, someday, we will have a fourth like I remember having. Until then, hope everyone else had a great time with family and friends. I know we did, even if the magic we saw in the air was shared with hundreds of others and was not just our own!