Fireworks 2012

We made big changes again for this years fireworks show. For a couple of years now GR has been searching for a new venue ... something better able to accommodate the crowd -- parking, facilities, etc. and didn't include our home within the fall out zone.  We've tried 4-5 different locations, all would have been perfect, but all have said no because of insurance premiums. All that is, but one. The local parks department agreed to let us shoot at the kids soccer fields.  Setting the fireworks up off the soccer/football fields in a farmers field that was mowed just for us, and the crowd sitting on the football fields.

We were worried not everyone would hear the show had moved, thankfully, word spread that the location had changed, and to our knowledge only one family showed up at the house first. Phew!  And with it being in a more public place, people felt more free to invite neighbors, friends and family to attend and we had a great turn out!  GR estimated 400 people, but it's hard to tell given that we were spread out across 1.5 football fields.  It was wonderful to see so many old friends who traveled in to attend the show, and others who were able to work the show into their vacation schedules as they traveled back to KS/MO to visit family.

We had people from CA, CO, AZ, ID, and IA in the audience.  

GR did time laps photography of the set up ... one picture every minute for 7 hours or so.  It doesn't quite give the amount of work, or the extreme heat they endured enough justice when you see it sped up to less than 1 minute.  



And we video taped the show!   For all our friends in fireworks banned states, hopefully you can view this on a large screen and not feel like you've missed out too much.



We served 256 root beer floats, same as the year before, though I was prepared to serve more than that. I kept all by two of my hardworking, trash picking-up cub scouts to the 1 per person rule which I think helped manage the quantities a bit more. HyVee put everything I needed on sale for the weekend which was hugely helpful! I was able to make it a one stop shop for all my float needs which was fabulous, and they were the cheapest in town to boot!

Our one bit of excitement for the evening was, what is now being referred to as the "crazy dog lady" by all who witnessed it. About 15 minutes into the show a dark station wagon with a woman driving, goes flying through our caution tape barricade and finally swerves to a stop. Concerned it was an emergency and someone in the crowd was needed, I went to investigate and see what was going on. By the time I got to her, she was stomping around her car trying to untangle it from the caution tape. She was furious, raging with anger. She had been at a dog park a few miles from the soccer fields and the fireworks frightened one of her dogs so badly that it ran off (the ran off part we pieced together a few hours later). She was screaming at the insensitivity of us shooting fireworks so close to a dog park. I apologized but assured her that we had worked with the city and gotten permission to do this and that rather than all the police she should call the city to complain ... it's 10pm at night, 30 minutes past when the sun was totally set, who is in an unlit dog park past dark?

Anyway, she was so angry that she pealed out of the parking lot, nearly taking out a friends toes and coming within inches of driving straight into me. She then nearly hit the neighbors car and then the icing on the cake that sent us to call the police on her, was she came within inches of nearly hit a mother and her two small boys crossing the parking lot to get to their car.

Sadly the police couldn't do anything about the "distraught dog woman" as, with any kind of driving citation, a police officer must witness it and we weren't able to get her plates.  The officer who came out to take down our concern for the distraught dog woman and any poor soul that got in her way, was extremely nice.  This was our favorite part of the conversation: 

"Driving out here I could feel the vibrations of the shells in my squad car ... that and the size of the shells, it's pretty obvious you know what you're doing and not shootin' off bottle rockets in your drive way, and that you've gotta be legit.  Next time just give us a heads up so we're in the loop." (We thought the fire chief had done that). 

To dispatch:  "All the calls from _____ about the fireworks will be ending now - the show's over."  
Then turning to the small group of people standing around him, he asks, who's in charge of the show and GR says he is. 

Officer Friendly: Who do you work for? 

GR: A hospital in Montana?
Officer: No, no I mean, who sponsored the show?

GR: I did. 

Officer: No, no, who paid for it? 

GR: I did. 

Officer: You mean, like as community service? 

GR: Aahh, kinda, something like that ... you should come out next year. 

Officer:  Ha, that's cool! 

This afternoon GR talked with someone from the local paper who called the city to find out more about the show and if it was going to be an annual thing.  We've been doing this for 5 years, and now that we moved a few miles in town, it get's noticed ... interesting.  Apparently what happens in the country, stays in the country.  Good to know!  

Overheard in the car after school

Child: Dad, you didn't have to go to work today?
GR: Nope.
Child: You get to choose when you go to work?
GR: No. I don't have a job right now.
Alex: You got FIRED!
GR: No. I quit.
Sam: You don't have a job?
GR: I do, but I start on Monday.
Child: Where?
GR: I'm going to work from home.
Em: But that doesn't pay anything.

Back story, although the point of sharing the above is Emily's comment - clearly I've succeeded in teaching my children that I work even though I stay home, but... the back story of the rest of the conversation. For a sometime now GR's been looking for a different job. He's interviewed all over the country, and at all but one location, gotten a job offer. In most cases the jobs were a perfect fit for his skill set and career goals, but every time we've prayed about whether to accept the offer or not, we've gotten the answer, no. A few weeks ago GR made contact with a former co-worker who had a job opening she wanted him to apply for, and it had the potential of being a remote position that he could do from home. Long story short, he interviewed, it went well, he was offered the job and he starts next week.

We are really excited to have him around more, even if he's in another room working. He will continue to do hospital pharmacy IT, it's just for a hospital out of state. He will work from home, out of our bedroom of all locations, and will occasionally travel to work on-site, meet with doctors and assist with conversions. And for now we're sticking around here. We are hopeful that this first year we'll be able prove that this arrangement is good for their business as well as for us.

Annual Fireworks Show

We had another great year with our annual fireworks show last night.  Our crowd was a bit smaller than last year, but we still served up about 270ish root beer floats.  I think this will become my new cap.  That's about an hour of serving and that's probably all that's needed. 

We brought in a port-a-potty which from the rental side was a marvelous experience.  I'm hoping it was equally as nice from the users side, but I haven't heard any feedback from people who needed it.  The rental company included a hand washing station, which we had to refill with water, so people did use it.  Hopefully they found it to be a close second to walking the additional 75 feet to the house.    

The show was spectacular, even with a pretty serious glitch in the firing sequence ... serious more for the ego of the firer not for anyone's safety.  It happens 2:22 into the show. 

So, yeah, the "grand finale" at 2:22 into the show, was not intentional.  GR was using a firing board he wasn't terribly familiar with and hit the ALL button, sending 16 cakes up into the air at the same time.  Really unfortunate cause it's hard to appreciate more than 4 cakes firing at a single time.  But he handled it really well and the show was still fantastic. 

We have lots of family in town this weekend.  We're the hub, and in a few short days we'll all be scattering for family vacations.  GR's mom and sister are spending time north, and the kids and I are heading west, meeting up with my parents and a couple of my siblings for a week in Southern Utah. 

Father's Day Art Project

Our Father's Day tributes were simple this year and given the schedule I've attempted to maintain in the last couple of weeks, simple was all I could do.  I saw this on Pinterest and loved it.  I decided to do this project with the kids way to late to order the PDF and ended up making my own using clipart from Microsoft that I edited.  This was so last minute that I didn't even have 11x17 card stock and had to print the image on two sheets of paper and tape them together ... real classy! 

The kids each choose a different shade of green pant.  We put the girls hand prints in the back ground in the darker colors, and layered the three younger ones on top.  Once it was all dry, I used a thin black ink pen to write each child's name and age on their hand print. 

Behind glass it looks even better and the seam, while noticeable, isn't too distracting.  I really love the results and it was a huge hit with GR ... though, how can he not when his other gifts were socks and the new Tom Clancy novel.  

A Dozen Surprises

1. Having GR walk through the door at 5:30pm on a Wednesday ... totally unheard of and on any other day of the week we're lucky if we see him by 6:30 or 7, especially over the last month+ and telling me to pack for a four day anniversary trip, "your parents left a hour ago, they'll be here by 8:30pm." Hallelujah! ... hours later I was able to pry out of him two clues, we're driving, and the weather, low 40s - high 60s.
2. Actually having more than one conversation with my husband in a week a day.  He drove the entire trip and let me sleep whenever I wanted to, what bliss! 
3. Arriving in Breckenridge, CO at a beautiful, beautiful bed and breakfast. 
4. Having dinner at an amazing little place in downtown Breckenridge called Hearthstone, where I had New Zealand Elk with a blackberry demi-glaze, baby carrots and mashed potatoes.  GR had Idaho trout stuffed with crab, asparagus and mashed potatoes.   Hands down our best meal of the weekend. 
5. Finding out what was in the Eddie Bauer box that arrived weeks ago and had to come on the trip ... apparently they are needed for Thursday mornings surprise.  

Thursday morning, signing my name 2 dozen times on a three page release form so I could participate in our next surprise adventure, that unfortunately didn't come with a granny speed or with a granny course ... but did come with a 2 hour climb through the mountains, covering about 20 miles and 2000 some feet in elevation, and breathtakingly beautiful scenery!  Man did we have a blast!  And I only, nearly hit a tree once ...  


6. Riding through beautiful old mining camps straight from a book I started the day before we left.

7. Driving through Independence Pass and stopping when ever we wanted to take pictures of anything and everything.  

8. Having lunch in Aspen ... walked past stores that were way too rich for me to even walk in front of. 
9. Watching a fox look both ways and cross the main street in downtown Breck, as we drove home after dinner.
10. Having our early Saturday morning surprise adventure rain out and loving the alternative just as much ... walking in the rain, window shopping, having lunch in Keystone on the top of the mountain (thanks to a great gondola ride), chilling in our room watching a redbox movie, ordering Pizza at the best place in town (based on the recommendation of the guy @ Mary's Mountain Cookies - we brought 2 dozen home for the kids) and having enough left over it will last us a week (we tried to offer a couple pieces to the guy in the cookie shop, but he just started P90X and turned us down ... but gave us the local's price on our two sandwich cookies we bought for dessert!)
11. Waking up Sunday morning to beautiful, huge, white snowflakes falling outside our window and 5 inches of snow on the car.  Then stunning thunderstorms across central Kansas. 

Thank you, my Love, for an planning every detail for an perfect weekend together.  
Thank you for always making our getaways a total surprise. 
Thank you for getting me out of my comfort zone so I can experience new and exciting things I would never consider doing if it were left up to just me. 
Thank you for loving me for my strengths and my failings. 
Thank you for taking care of me, for being my man, while still letting me and expecting me to be independent. 
Thank you for making the last twelve years a good solid foundation for the next twelve years, and the twelve after that.  They've been filled with one surprise after another, and I know the future will bring much of the same. I wouldn't want to experience it with anyone else.

Sunday Night Devotionals

As a youth I attended many Sunday night firesides at members homes. Typically they were held at youth leaders homes, or the homes of fellow youth, but occasionally they were held in other members homes. When GR mentioned at the beginning of the year that they were going to start having more youth firesides ... now called devotionals cause fireside really is a confusing term, since they are rarely held at the side of a fire ... and wanted to have them held in members home whenever possible, I got excited for the youth.

Tonight we got a chance to host the first one, and I think the youth had a great time. The speaker (pictured left), I'm told, did a bang up job as always. Sadly, my plan to listen in from the back door didn't happen. Just as he got started, Alex had an accident and my mother called totally lost in KC. I'm still trying to figure out exactly where she was. After driving around the suburbs for a while and consulting google maps, we finally got her back on the right highway and she eventually made it here to spend Spring Break with us (Daddy's out of town for the week, so she's spending it with us!).

Thankfully, it was just dry enough and just warm enough to have it outside around the fire pit. We rounded up all the fleece and wool blankets in the house for them to wrap up in and served a good amount of hot chocolate, s'mores and fruity rice krispie treats. I hope we'll be able to host more things like this, where we can provide a fun place for the youth to hang out, feel the spirit and allow their testimonies to grow in a safe environment. And I'm excited for other families in the ward to provide the same kind of space for the youth this year too.

A Little Known Fact

.... that is, I think it's a little known fact ... I guess we'll have to see.

One of the perks of buying Grandma and Grandpa's house is having access to the shed. The shed houses all of Bob's wood working equipment. Bob couldn't take them with him, so we're looking after them, providing them a good home, and when he needs something, he shows up and uses or takes what ever he needs for the project of the day.

Like most guys who went to a small high school, GR took shop. He really enjoyed it and had a shop teacher that would let the kids make whatever they wanted. So after the first standard project, he started making other things; a set of nesting elephants for his mother, a rocking horse, a bench with storage under the seat. Since high school, he's done small projects here and there for church or scouts or the fireworks or to help Bob with a home improvement project, but hasn't really been able to do hard core projects because he hasn't had easy access to the tools like he does now. Now that he sleeps 30 feet from them, a whole new world is opening up ... that and the discovery of this blog back in January!

Just before we moved, we cashed in every single credit card point we had a crewed over the last decade or more, for Best Buy gift cards, and finally purchased a big flat TV with every single one of those points. It got delivered the weekend we moved in. After watching a couple of shows, we realized a table or console of some kind under the TV would be smart to help little kids, their hands and their toys at a distance, otherwise, we were going to have a problem. We looked at Target and Walmart, even Craigslist, and found some suitable options, but in almost every case they were expensive for what you were getting. And so we figured we could totally make our own, and settled on these plans.

It took a series of nights over two weeks to complete it ... it was all GR. I did nothing, but make sure sleeping children didn't wake up, admire his handy work, console him when he pointed out mistakes, and of course, click pictures so I could brag on him. I'm not sure exactly how people are able to put this thing together in an evening or two?! But we are both so pleased with how it turned out and are already planning future projects!




So there you have it, a little known fact, my husband can build stuff from scratch!

Pinewood Derby ... a photo story

They've been working on for a full week straight. Designing, cutting, sanding, painting, assembling, weighing, testing. To be fair, and allow each the level of participation they desire, two cars were made. The son's car, and the dad's car. Both enjoyed the experience immensely. Both learned a lot for next year.


The whole family went out to support Sam at his race. We were all thrilled with how his car turned out. Sam really wanted a Jayhawk on his car, not just red and blue paint (pictured above, far left - red and blue with blue wheels). We were able to use temporary tattoos for the Jayhawk decals on the nose and tail of the car. Worked really well and a clear protective coat kept it from rubbing off.


Both cars won lots of races. Sam placed 5th in the Boy Scout division and was so pleased with his car!


GR's car raced in the open division. He worked really hard on his car ... using a sweet design he found on line, spending lots of time in Bob's workshop getting cuts just right, and the final touch - a special color changing paint. We are all very proud of his car ... and were all pleasantly surprised when it won ... race, after race, after race.



They are already making plans for next year.

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.

Déjà Vu

Last year we had a really good time going to the fireworks product demo put on by the group GR purchases all his commercial fireworks from. And having gone before, we felt more prepared this year to invite friends and turn the event in to an official tradition. The weather was picture perfect and we had a fabulous evening!



We packed a simple "camp fire" dinner (aka, hot dogs to warm on a couple disposable charcoal grills), drank pink lemonade, talked and laughed and relaxed, made s'mores, used up odds-and-ends paper goods from previous parties, watched the kids run and play and laugh, and then oooohhed and ahhhed at a beautiful, breathtaking fireworks show. Most of the kids piled into the back of Joe's truck to watch the show; making up their own names for each of the displays.

It was so nice to escape to the country, leaving the stress of "real life" behind and be with good friends for a couple of hours, living totally in the moment.

For your viewing pleasure ... two videos from the evening ...

6-8-10-12 inch shells from Willi Wild on Vimeo.

AERIAL FX Mini Pyro Musical 04/18/09 from Willi Wild on Vimeo.

The Cat's out of the Bag

Thirteen years of carefully "guarding" his real name all came to a screeching halt this week when two very large boxes arrived addressed to the Bishop. Apparently church head quarters doesn't use preferred names when addressing tithing envelopes.

* * * *

The kids head back to school tomorrow and so I'm slowing putting the house back together from our two weeks of Christmas celebrations. I hope to make lots of new posts in the coming days, so be prepared for bloglines/google reader/etc. to go crazy and to scroll down, since I'll be doing my traditional post posting.

Wishing you all a blessed New Year!

From the Other Half...

Best non-family quote so far about being bishop: "The good thing about you being called as Bishop at such a young age, everything you screw up you'll get to fix when they call you again later on!"

My wife has been bugging me to post these little tidbits of information, so here goes...


Best quote from Sam: (We were in my office at the church) "This is so weird, coming in here now to get candy."
Me:"Why is that?"
Sam:"Because this is the real Bishop's office, not yours."


Best quote from Rebecca: (I was putting on a shirt and tie to go on teamups with the Elders)
Rebecca:"Why are you putting on a tie?"
Me:"I'm going on team-ups with the missionaries tonight."
Rebecca:"Well, that's odd."
Me:(laughing)"Why is that odd?"
Rebecca:"Well, you hardly ever go out with the missionaries"
Me:"True, but I'm the Bishop now, so you just have to do these things."
Rebecca:"Oh, so you don't have a choice anymore?"

How was your Sunday?

In case you're wondering, the three signatures were each done in a different color of ink or type of pen.

Heaven help us all ... the answering machine message and GR's cell phone voice mail message are getting changed today ... if you've ever called his cell phone and gotten his voice mail and listened to the entire message, you'll understand why it MUST be changed very, very, very soon!

Birthday Wishes

Today is also GR's birthday. After Anna's EKG, we stopped at the mall to look at suits. GR's one Sunday suit is in really sad shape ... the lining of the jacket needs to be sewn back in place, one of his back pants pockets needs someone to work their magic on it, and the hole he had the tailor repair a number of months ago while still holding up, won't last forever. JosABanks was having one of their many amazing sales and we found two good work horse suits and one "dressy" suit for him to put in his closet.

We had a nice little celebration at home. While I picked the children from various friends homes, GR picked up dinner at Jack Stacks - his favorite BBQ place. His mom wasn't feeling well so we called another family to join us in the festivities, and help us make a dent in all the scrumptous BBQ GR got. Yesterday, I made pudding filled cupcakes for his birthday "cake" allowing me to make both chocolate and vanilla (Anna reacts very negatively to any chocolate in my system and I wanted birthday cake too.). I sent all the extras with GR to work this morning so I didn't have tons of cake starring at me for days and days.

ETA: 15 October


GR picked up his suits from the tailor last week and tonight he and Sam put on their best suits to attend a memorial service for McKensie. They both look really sharp, and I was glad GR encouraged Sam to put on his suit for this occasion, and that Sam agreed to wear it.

KC Air Show

GR and his sister grew up going to lots and lots of airshows with his Dad ... GR loves them, Elspeth, despises them. So when we found out many of our friends were taking their kids to the KC Airshow today, GR jumped at opportunity to go! We decided Anna, Alex and I would stay behind and he would give the older kids the choice of staying, or going. He tried his best not to candy coat the outing, trying to give those most likely to whine the most accurate description of what the day would be like - long, hot, cool airplanes, long, hot, etc. His description did not discourage any of the older three from going, and quite honestly they were all really excited about it.



There have been many times over the last 12 years I've wished GR or I could call his dad and gain needed perspective on a situation and today was no different. In order to get good seats and to see all the different planes scheduled, they left the house at 8am. By 11:30 when I called to check in on them, Emily was asleep on the concrete, Rebecca was complaining about how hungry she was and Sam had asked 3-4 times to go home. When I asked GR if he had loved his first air show, of course his answer was "Yes!" ... when I mentioned this to Diane later in the afternoon, she laughed! Turns out the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. As a child, GR got just as hot and tired and bored and hungry as our kids did, but in the end, just like him, all three of them came home happy and all said they wanted to go again!

Finger Licking Good!

Our house smells so good ... the air is thick with the aroma of BBQ and I don't think it's going to go away any time soon.

Today was the ward BBQ contest. After we got home from Sam's party last night and got everyone in bed, the adults in the house set to work preparing for today. My Dad (who came in town to visit my Mom, attend Sam's party, the contest and celebrate Alex's birthday tomorrow) bounced Anna who was wide away for hours last night! - while Mom and I made the BBQ sauce and applied the rub to the ribs. GR and Dime, worked late into the night putting together Dime's smoker and prepping his meat. Saturday they had everything ready to go by 11 so they could be at the park to start smoking their entries by noon.



(Don't you like GR's apron? The apron was a wedding present from a very good friend in college - using freezer paper stenciling the kids and I added the "GR 8 RIBS" - he hee hee - as a little something fun for Papa to have for the contest.)

This years entries ... ribs and chicken ... were oh so tasty! Lots of great cooks and great recipes! Ours didn't even hit the top five - but all those that did, were very deserving! And everyone who sampled our ribs and chicken were quite complimentary (like I said we had stiff competition this year!). Alex really loves this recipe and cleaned three ribs of all their meat with no problem!

Employee of the Month

Phone call from GR this morning:

Guess what?
What?
I'm Employee of the Month!
Really!? For the Pharmacy?
Nope.
The whole hospital?! Really!? Why?! How?!
What do you mean?
The hospital is huge, so many employees, and they noticed you ... that is awesome!
I know it really is, huh!?
Way to go Honey, that is so awesome!!

So what are some of the perks for being Employee of the Month for May AND June?

• A great parking spot,
• $50 gift certificate to the gift shop (promptly handed over to me as my Mother's Day gift!),
  
• A certificate to have his portrait taken a photo studio so it can be added to the wall of EoM in the cafeteria,
  
• A duffel bag,
  
• A reception with cake in the cafeteria on a day of his choosing (the boys and I are planning on attending),
  

And the perk he's the most excited about ...

• Unlimited free meals in the cafeteria for May and June!

Sharing in Papa's Passion

Bet you didn't know that April is when all the big fireworks distributors start showing off their latests and greatest in pyrotechnics gearing up for the busy summer season of ballgames, and city Independence Day celebrations? Tonight was one of the many shooter schools and catalog demonstrations happening this month in KS and MO. Despite a busy day ... starting with me leaving for Women's Conference in the wee hours of the morning while GR fed, clothed and packed a car for three morning soccer games, then spending a hour and a half at the school carnival that afternoon once I got home from WC, we decided to live life dangerously, armed ourselves with well rested children, McDonald's for dinner, jackets and a good size blanket, and venture out about an hour from home to the middle of nowhere Kansas to meet up with GR's fireworks buddies and watch the demo.



For GR it was exciting to watch huge fireworks ... 2.5", 4", 6", 8", 10" (that's the diameter of the individual shell) and rank them with the children. Rebecca and Dim rated the cakes and decided that there are some really boring cakes out there! And I loved listening to the announcer as he read off the name of each shell before it exploded in the air. Finally learning the names of the fireworks I love ... like Peony, Chrysanthemum and Willow. Sam announced the he really likes Willows and Falling Leaves, and like his mother, loves the ones that whistle! (if you follow the link connected to cake you can read the definition of each of those names if you want to know what they are an sound super knowledge able at your next fireworks show.

ETA: We didn't leave the show until 10pm (the boys crashed well before that with me in the car), and it did make for a very, very, predictable church experience for the boys, which GR and I were prepared for (although looking back, maybe we should have warned the rest of the congregation?), but everyone had a great time and we are always in need of more quality family time and this fit the bill perfectly!