4th of July

We didn't really have anything planned for the 4th of July.  We woke up and had one of those, "I don't know, what do you want to do?" mornings.  We decided to use some Living Social vouchers I'd bought for a water park that's in the next town over.

 They still don't like even the little kid water slides.  They mostly like to lay on their bellies in the shallow pool and pretend to swim (read: scrape their bathing suits along the bottom of the pool until they pill...).  They like to sit on the edge of the pool (like the pic of Em, just above, at "0 Ft 0 In") and jump in, and climb back out again.  Julie has recently started to like laying on her back and floating.  She's also been swimming in the tub lately - Emma and Becca are usually in a hurry to get out of the tub when I do baths, so I always save Julie for last.  She loves having the whole tub to herself, and I let her "swim" while I start cleaning up.

The girls had been begging to go see fireworks all week.  We used it as a bargaining chip for most of the week.  On the 4th, we told them that they all had to take a nap, or we wouldn't go see fireworks.  I guess the water park wore them out sufficiently, because they all did take a nap.  At that point, Greg and I figured we'd have to come up with a plan for fireworks after all.  Naps are so hard to come by these days that we were counting on staying home.

We had about 3 options, and considering traffic, cost, and crowds, we decided to go a few towns over. They were having a carnival in addition to fireworks, so after dinner, we headed over.  There were only a couple of rides that they were big enough for.  Here, they're contemplating the ferris wheel.

They went on this thing first.  It was definitely small town carnival, complete with a spare bolt laying on the platform.

They all wanted to go on the little ferris wheel, too.  While we were waiting in line, I overheard a boy tell his mother that it looked like a dog cage.  Yeah, pretty much.

They really wanted to go on the bigger ferris wheel with us, but the line was ridiculous, and it was going to cost us $20 to all go.  Instead, we spent that $20 on some Italian ices.

Love this one.

At that point, we were just stalling until the fireworks.  There was a concert going on, so we checked that out for a bit.  Finally, we decided to get some drinks and kettle corn, and go get the chairs from the car to settle in for some fireworks.

We settled in.  Found a spot.  Cracked open the kettle corn.

One firework went up.  It was pretty.

And then, it went BOOM.

And they freaked.

"Iwannagetinthecar.  I'mscared.  Daddy!  Idon'twannaseefireworks!  Iwannagohome!"

They were yelling and crying, so much that the people in front of us got up and moved.

We packed up.  Watched fireworks from 3 or 4 different displays from the car on the way home.

I can't say I was terribly disappointed.  I'm not crazy about fireworks myself.  But after how much they wanted to go, I felt bad for them.

Maybe next year.