Saturday, July 5, 2008

Fourth of July















We had an eventful fourth this year! Jay's family has pretty set traditions for the day. Jay looks forward to the fourth as much as Christmas!! We started the day with the Magna Parade. Of course, it was at 12:30 and the forecast we saw said it would be over 100 degrees that day. Luckily, there was cloud cover at least for a few minutes at the start. We were all pretty hot by the end!! Jayden and Ethan got stickers and fire hats and saw lots of fun things!


Jayden didn't even want to leave at the end, but you can tell by these pictures, we needed to get out of the HEAT! We ate (of course) Jay's Mom always makes lots of good stuff for holidays. Then we rested to recover while the boys all started setting off some fireworks. That is Jay's favorite part. He and David choose a couple of toys to annihilate every year and make the most interesting displays often out of ordinary fireworks. I always just pray each year that they end the day with all of their digits and without any trips to the Hospital! :) They have created lots of fun memories over the years with all of their firework shenanigans. Jay hopes to share his love with his sons, but Jayden wasn't having any of it. In fact, he insisted on being inside WITH THE DOOR CLOSED if any fireworks were going on. And if they had the door open he would scream in terrible panic and seek out Mommy or Aunt Ginger to save him. By the evening though he was willing to sit out on my lap and watch the fireworks with his hands clapped solidly over his ears and at times his face buried as well. Baby steps... Ethan did like the fireworks. It's funny each child has their own preferences. Jayden is more for the lagoon thrills while ethan likes daddy's homemade rides and fireworks.



After a barbecue and more fireworks we went to a particularly exciting Magna firework show. Shortly after it started, two of the fire trucks left with their lights on, we noticed a small fire on the mountain a ways north of us. Most of us watched the fire more than the fireworks, and it was absolutely unbelievable!! It spread so quickly! Before we knew it, the entire mountainside seemed to be engulfed and moving alarmingly quickly in our direction. I am so paranoid that I was convinced it was right there, and that we should be evacuating the park! In fact, it seemed to us that it had jumped the highway by the end and was burning the golf course just north of the park. The flames appeared to be so close!! There was a tree that was burning that I would have swore was just on the north border of the park. I was happy when we were packing up and leaving. Jay said he hadn't seen me move that fast in months(referring to my slow tired movements of late :) By the time we were driving home there was an orange glow covering the whole mountain and tons of seeable flames and smoke even from a distance. We were certain the the park was gone by then! We scoured our stations seeking news and could find very little even this morning, so we drove by there today. Amazingly it never even crossed the highway. There was a pretty good sized area burned, but I was suprised how small based on the raging flames we had seen. I expected to see the entire mountain burned as well as the golf course and the park! But it was just a really long strip right in the middle of the mountain, not even up to the road... But still I have to say it was one of the most remarkable things I have ever seen. I wish I could say I got a picture, but all of our attempts turned out black. After all of that excitement, we went home and set off TONS more fireworks. I really enjoyed Jay and David's displays. My cute husband was using his plumbing torch to light them, so he could light a lot in a short amount of time. I love to see how happy he is. The little boy really comes out of him at these times. Sadly, I spend all of my time ruining his fun and crushing that little boy's spirit. I just want him to be careful!! We had a marvelous day and I think I am still feeling the effects of the long day and the LATE night. I hope I will have recovered by tomorrow. But it was worth it. Hope you all had a wonderful day. In spite of our current financial woes and the political mess we have in Washington.(By the way, I support Bush, I am referring to the constant finger pointing and excuse making by all of hypocrites in BOTH parties in our legislative branch. The fact that they will not even try to work together and therefore, get very little accomplished for the benefit of our country. Then they feel justified by blaming their lack of compromise on someone else...while still collecting their ridiculous salaries) Anyway, sorry for the rant, I wasn't intending to get on my soap box, I just didn't want anyone to believe that I had turned on Bush.) :) What I was trying to say, is that in spite of all of our problems I feel incredibly blessed to live in this country. We have so much to be thankful for! We are free to choose the life we want, and free to get involved and try to make things better. I hope we will all remember that there is no country in the world who has what we do.

2 comments:

Ben and Taryn said...

I'm so glad you posted pictures. Those boys are so stinkin' cute! I'm glad you had a good fourth. I think it is so fun to see the little boy come out of grown men when fireworks come out. Ben was the same way this year.

Rachel said...

Yay for pictures! I'm glad you had a fun 4th of July! I love these pictures of your boys :) I can just see Jay's glee at the fireworks, but I'm the same as you... imagining the worst happening. We were even just watching the neighbors and I kept thinking that they were getting too close! It's fun though! Glad you had a good time! Love ya!