We love the fourth

The Fourth of July is not usually one of my favorite holidays. For one thing it's always way too hot and for another there's always way too many people. The lack of those things made this Fourth of July one of the best we've ever had. We always forget that they do fireworks in our city on July 3rd. We put the girls to bed at regular time on Thursday because we forgot. They came downstairs at 10 pm and said they could see fireworks from the pink room window. Roger said oh that's right, let's go check it out. (Isn't he such a great dad, he could have said who cares, get back in bed, but he didn't.) We could kind of see the fireworks from our backyard, but since the view wasn't great we decided to have our own firework show. We knew we would be home really late on Friday, so it was the perfect time. Yep it was like 10 pm, the girls changed out of their pajamas so we could sit in the drizzling weather and watch Roger light and runaway as fast as he could from the fireworks. It was awesome.

Oh, they're excited for the show to start.

Friday came and we wanted to try to go down to Pittsburgh to see the fireworks. What's great about Pittsburgh, is that there was all kinds of entertainment going on on the rivers before it got dark. We went down at about 5 and found a place on the grass to sit. It was a little bit rainy, but we were prepared. Because it was a little bit rainy the crowd was sparse. We didn't really know where to go, so we just picked a spot on the North Shore. As it turned out, we couldn't have picked a better spot. The finals of a formula one race was right in front of us. We sat right by turn one and two. It was such an exciting race to watch. Then we had some time to wait before the fireworks started. The girls were so good and for the most part were content to people watch. We brought glow sticks and that kept them occupied for probably an hour. When it was time for the fireworks, again, we couldn't have picked a better spot. The barge where the fireworks are detonated from was docked right across the river from us. It was so exciting. What's so great about the girls is they are at the best ages right now that it's actually fun to go do things like this. It doesn't feel like a marathon, or a rodeo (all the wrangling) or even a wrestling match. We had such a great time and hopefully I'll have the guts to do it again next year!

Here's one of the formula one boats. This was before the race started. During the race it was really hard to get a picture. The boats get up to 140 mph.

Ashby with her glow sticks.

Avery doing a fine job modeling her glow bracelets. It wouldn't be a holiday without Kool-aid mustaches would it? In this case it's Strawberry crystal light mustaches, but the result was just as good.

Roger and I waiting for the fireworks to start. I don't ever remember having to wear a jacket on the Fourth, I loved it!