Celebrating Miss Amercia!

Our Fourth of July adventures spanned three days and we had a great time0!



Thursday night after dinner and a quick house pick up, we all went to GR's favorite local fireworks stand so he and the kids could purchased some "daytime" fireworks to shoot of at his parent's house. This is the first year that the kids have gone along and helped choose the daytime stuff we shoot off. And the picked some great things. Crop Circles and Ladybugs were some of our favorites this year.



Friday morning we took the kids to the dollar store and pick out something special. Becca and Emily both picked out cups shaped like ice cream cones with twirly straws that wrapped around the outside of the cup, Sam picked out new water balls for the pool, and Alexander picked up a new Micky Mouse baseball puzzle.

We spent the afternoon and evening at the home of Bill and Sharon. GR grew up their kids, and their son Rob is GR's best friend. For as long as GR and I have been together and we spent the 3rd of July at their house. Many of their kids were home visiting for the holiday so we got catch up a little bit, between helping kids with this and that.



Saturday morning was our pancake breakfast, at which the kids all astounded the adults around them by the number of pancakes they could each pack away. Onlookers were convinced they'd make themselves sick if they ate one more pancake, but they weren't. Pancakes are just one of those things my kids can eat by the stack!

We had a fantastic dinner at Bob and Diane's. Between Diane's friends, Bob's family (two of Bob's kids were in town this year) and my family that came (Mom, Dad, Suz, Joe and Katy) we had around 30 people for dinner.

The weather was so nice and mild ... we had some dark clouds roll by in the mid evening that got us worried, but it didn't rain and people came out in droves. This was one of the first years where GR and I did a better job of inviting more of our neighborhood friends, rather than having such a high percentage be church friends and acquantances.

We served 192 servings of ice cream! We moved out behind the playhouse so we were closer to the crowd. I also recruited some helpers this year. My sister Suz, soon to be sister-in-law Katy and friend Steph all helped us serve up all the root beer floats. I did up my cup size to a 12 oz. cup which helped equal out the root beer and ice cream per portions. The other thing we did this year was use dry ice to help keep the ice cream from turning to soup. It worked fantastically - that is unless it was in direct contact with the ice cream and then it worked a little too fantastically. Maybe if it were wrapped in newspaper?





The electric fire system GR, Charlie and Joe worked so hard on worked so well! In the past each shell has been hand fired, causing pauses of a couple of minutes between sets of shells. This year, they were able to flip a switch which sent an electrical current down a wire attached to each fuse, which would fire off each shell. The firing was well timed; by far their best shoot yet! His shows have rivaled professional shoots in the past, but his year, you'd be hard pressed to see much of a difference between his show and most other small town shows.

The only disadvantage we had this year was the wind. It was blowing straight south - toward the crowd - covering everyone with a layer of debris and ash instead of away from the crowd and into the woods. But everyone took it in stride and still left the show saying nothing but praise!



Every year I am astounded by the size of the crowd - well over 200 this year - and the interest people have in coming out for a backyard show and enjoying one another's company. I am also deeply touched and humbled by the number of people who over the years have asked contribute to what has been fondly coined the "Save GR's marriage fund" (aka the root beer float and fireworks fund). The thoughtfulness and generosity of our friends and neighbors, leaves me speechless and with a lump in my throat.