Pretty awesome, early morning of fruit pizza, babies, cinnamon rolls, rain drizzling, Â half hearted balloons inflating, and nearly all the people I love in this lovely world.
I sincerely treasure these days.
Of course, everyone celebrates holidays in their own family fashion–but this one, for us, simply needs to include a big pile of the day-time, mostly kid-friendly fireworks. You know, tanks, parachutes, crackly bombs, snakes, poppers,  and…
smoke bombs. I know, you were thinking that I’d show a picture of the actual smoke coming out of that silly little thing–weren’t you? Yeah, well, every time I tried to take a picture, the colored smoke that the kids have LOVED for a million years–was gone in like 4 seconds. I’m not kidding. Is it just me or were some of the fireworks way, WAY shorter and smaller and…ummm, dare I say–cheaper this year? Hmmmm….
But I digress.
My cute little pyros still enjoyed themselves lighting every possible combustible thing in site.
Then came the Tank war–and the rock-paper-scissors to see who would go first.
Bald guy won.
Probably, if you want the best tank war pictures on the face of the earth, you should give the camera to a crazy teen-aged boy who has no fear of losing an eye or a couple of fingers.
That ain’t me baby. Â So, you’ll have to believe it when I tell you that it was epic. Except for the fact that THIS year, the tanks didn’t shoot 18 inches of sparkly flames AND they didn’t have wheels. Seriously, firework people?! How can you have a tank battle when nothing moves. Good grief.
At least we had pizza and that made it all better.
And I finally got a shot of the smoke bombs–that shall henceforth be known as smoke WHISPS. Let’s be accurate.
The baby boy had a lovely time and didn’t even have to cover his ears for most of it, and he even caught a couple of parachutes. I was too busy clapping to get a picture of that–sorry.
The big boy had a marvelous time too because, well…because he was setting things on fire and that’s really all it takes for a grown-up-little boy to find pure unadulterated joy. You know it’s true.
Everyone left at dusk to go to the Cul-de-sac of Fire up the street…
 but I found that from the yard, the view was perfect…
and I didn’t have to deal with ashes in my face…
or tiny pieces of cardboard landing on my head.
Of course, from my very own bed worked nicely too.
100 Happy Days #46
Oh, how we love the early morning of July 4th!
For years and years and years we’ve gathered at the same park…
at 6 a.m. sharp…
with a zillion other crazies…
to be part of the balloon festival in Provo.
It always starts the same way, with the lead balloon taking off first.
while the others are still getting ready.
It takes dozens of torch blasts to fill each balloon…
and get them to settle up straight.
Then one by one they start rising up into the air.
These guys threw out tiny parachutes to the children below.
Now and then an unfamiliar balloon appears in the sky. Hello yellow–you’re new.
I’m sure that some day it could happen…
that we get tired…
and bored…
and lazy…
and choose to sleep in…
instead of coming here…
in the wee hours of the morning…
before normal people are even awake…
just for a little of this…
and this…
and this.
Yeah, maybe.
When pigs fly.
:}
“I am apt to believe that it (Independence Day) will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shows, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”
~John Adams~
Did anybody notice that there was no post for the 4th of July Balloon Festival?
Well, that, my friends is because we were totally ready to go at 5:30 am but when we arrived at the field…
all the people and cars were going the other direction.
Apparently, there was too much cloud cover and too much wind so the whole darn shootin’ match was canceled and everyone was heading back home.
Which pretty much means that this year the Hot Air Balloon Festival was just, you know….
hot….air.
Yeah, I crack myself up.
Luckily, even in a dreadful crisis such as this, we still know how to behave.
It was a good day.
:}