Happy Fourth of July, 2014!

This year, Oliver asked me what we are watching fireworks for. I told him a little story:
A long time ago, our country was ruled by a king who lived far away. This king made rules and laws for us, but they weren't good laws. So, one day, we decided that we would make our own laws. That day was our first Independence Day. Now, we celebrate that day every year.

That seemed to do the trick! We went to the supermarket and got snakes & sparklers. It's been a long time since we've gotten to purchase things like that. In Colorado, it's usually too hot and dry to even allow sparklers for fear of wildfires.

Jo took a late nap so she could stay up for the fireworks show, and Andrew and Oliver lit some of the snakes. Oliver was afraid of them at first and ran away.

Then, went it got close to dark, we packed up and set out for Raccoon River Park in West Des Moines. For whatever reason, most of the major fireworks displays in Des Moines happened on July 3. Maybe it's to give city workers the Fourth of July off, but that's just speculation. Anyway, we set out for the suburbs. We barely entered the park before we decided to just pull over and set up our chairs there. I'm glad we did because it looked like a lot of traffic to get further into the park. In future years, maybe we'll wait and see the fireworks over the lake.

Here are the kiddos, patiently waiting for fireworks with their Fourth of July popsicles.

Here's Oliver with some sparklers! He's actually really good with them.

Here's a video of Oliver with his sparklers:

                   

...and Andrew helped Jo hold her sparkler, which she called a "rainbow."

At least, it was fireworks time! Oliver and Jo both loved them, and Oliver would guess which color the next one would be.

Jo wanted to wear the shades, even though it was pitch black.