Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie, & Chevrolet

Well, the pie was blueberry, but that was all that was missing in having an All American 4th of July. Our celebration started on the 3rd with an outing to the baseball game with fireworks afterwards. Garrett and I came to the realization that we have made this a tradition without even trying. We have gone to a minor league game for the 4th of July for 5 out of the last 5 years! It's a great seat for fireworks if you ask me, so that is why I like to go. We would prefer to be in Paris, ID with Garrett's grandma, but that hasn't been feasible since we moved away. There is just something about the 4th there that I have grown to really love. There's nothing like a small town celebration for the 4th of July, it's just the best! So we always miss going, but try to make do anyways.

So we stuck out one of the longest games of my entire life on Thursday night just so we could see the fireworks. After about 8 innings, we were all getting ansy and tired (especially the boys--but they had been SO good), and then it ended up going 11 innings! I thought it would never end. And don't get me wrong, I love a good baseball game, I really do, but at that point, I honestly didn't care who won or how they won as long as somebody won so the game would end! We were thinking after one more inning, if it hadn't ended, we'd just have to go, but luckily 11 innings ended it. And since Tyler had been asking if it was over for about 6 innings, he was THRILLED to finally see the firework show. He loves them! And by this time, Sam had finally given up and was sound asleep through all of them. And I gave a try at getting some firework shots this year. It was a better attempt than last year, but I have come to realize that you just sit too close in the stadium to get amazing pictures, so this was about all I came home with. Here are a few that turned out ok.

So the 4th was mostly spent at a BBQ with friends. Mmmm, yum! The food was excellent! The hostess even makes her own BBQ sauce and it was delicious. So we headed home and lit off a few 'snakes' outside. Isn't this the picture that every parents wants to get of their child?
(yes, we had lots of talk about fire safety yesterday!)
And who doesn't have at least a slight fascination with watching a snake "grow"? I know I do! and Tyler definitely does! I loved them as a kid and still kind of like them today!

And then we attempted a few pictures after Sam woke up from his nap.

This one is a serious goofball, if you didn't already know that! :)

I always make it a point to have at least one picture of us all together on the 4th. I don't know why, but I just like to. So, take in to account the fact that we're taking the picture ourselves, they are never great, but I love having one of us all together. So this year we have to settle for the flag in front of Tyler's face! Oh well!


And it finally got dark (Tyler didn't think it EVER would!) and we got to our own amazing show, as you can imagine. It included a lot of sparklers, fountains, jumping jacks, and the like. It was fun and we were all pretty exhausted when it was over! :)

As a kid, I think sparklers were my favorite firework and I still like them quite a bit nowadays, but they never seem to last long enough. So I was thrilled to see some seriously HUGE sparklers and bought a few. I thought they were awesome! I just love them! Here is an example of one:
And a few impressive fountains for you...who doesn't love a few driveway fireworks, eh?!

And we played around with camera shutter speeds and sparklers and had fun. Tyler enjoyed dancing around in front of the camera with his sparklers. He kept getting confused and calling them sprinklers. He kept saying, "Oh, I LOVE sprinklers!". So, I leave you with a few photos of our sprinklers:
Tyler called this one his roller coaster:

And that's a wrap of our 4th of July...the end!