OOOOH, AHHHH, WOW

I love this time of year! The third and fourth of July are turning into my favorite days of the year. They aren't as good as Christmas but they are getting close. It was not always that way however.... Another story...
The year that Dan and I moved to Denver we decided the boys were finally old enough to see the fireworks and enjoy them if we took them to a public fireworks display. We had just gotten to Denver in May of that year and right after we moved there we started hearing about this new radio station that had just started and they were going to be having the largest fireworks display in the state of Colorado. Dan and I were so excited. We figured if it was a new station there would not be as many people as if the station was already established.. It was supposed to be in brand new park with a large lake and well it just felt like Kismet. We decided we would go down to the park at about 1:00 PM the kids could go swimming and play on the park swings and playground for a while, we would have a wonderful picnic and when it got dark we could watch the fireworks. So July 4 rolls around and we are all really looking forward to the day we have planned. When we get to the new park we were forced to park about a 1/2 mile from where the display is going to be, in this huge field. There weren't many cars parked there and we kind of felt this was a good place to park because there would not be so much traffic clear away from the fireworks. They provided a bus to drive us to where the fireworks would be and up on arriving there we discovered that the park did not even have grass. We would be sitting in scrub fields full of weeds and dirt. There was no swing sets or even a playground and if you so much as put a finger in the "lake" you got fined and if you went swimming you got arrested. The sheriff was watching that lake like it was his grandchild and no one crossed him. So we put out a blanket and ate our food and fortunately we had some books and crayons and things for the boys to keep them busy and somehow the afternoon and evening passed. The fireworks were wonderful! They were huge extravagant and really wonderful. Everyone of us enjoyed them. They were over at 11:00 and it was time to go home. So we gathered our blanket and headed to the bus along with 50,000 other people, most of whom had arrived much later than us to the park. We finally caught the bus to our car after a half hour wait. We packed the boys in their car seats and turned on the car and literally crawled out of the parking lot. It took until 2:00 in the morning for us to be able to get out of the parking lot. It took another half hour for us to get home and we finally got to bed at 3:00AM. Both of us were dead the next day since we both had to work and we worked on 3 hours of sleep. Since that day we dont do public fireworks displays. We dont do large events with even larger crowds and we DON'T do NEW!
Instead we have the most wonderful small town fireworks display on the island in Freeland and every year we go to sit on the grass in the small park with about 5,000 people (a lot of who are friends or acquaintances) and we watch the fireworks, hike to our car and go home. It is the most wonderful way to spend the holiday. Freeland has their fireworks on the third so those who go to it dont have to work the next day and can sleep in on the fourth. It is a nice thing. Of course, everyone else has their fireworks on the fourth and we have turned the fourth into a barbecue time for us and a deck party where we sit and watch all of the fireworks from Marysville, Tullalip Indian reservation, Everett, Bothell, Arlington and Mukilteo go up for over 4 hours. It honestly looks like a war zone and it has become a part of our celebration to sit and enjoy this evening with friends and family. This year we expect about 20 (maybe) and it should be a party!! So I hope your party and your celebration for the fourth of July is big and wonderful and full of fireworks, and good food and most of all friends and I will talk with you on the 5th. See ya soon, Rene