Happy 4th of July

I love this picture of Madison tonight.  She's watching these fireworks that are directly over our head, these massive and loud explosions of color in the night.  We're feeling the remnants pitter patter all about us afterwards as even more go up overheard.  This is our neighborhood.  As big as our neighborhood does Halloween, it also pours a great deal into the Fourth of July.  It's as if someone bought out a warehouse.  Three guys, three houses in particular, put together a show directly behind our house, and it makes going anywhere else to see fireworks irrelevant!  After a short walk around our neighborhood, we sat there and enjoyed the show tonight.  And all this was after another show we had right across the street.  In fact, here's Madison and a few others having a seat in our next door neighbor's front yard.

There were a few good fireworks put in the street in front of us, some whizzing and burning brightly, some shooting out colorful flames, and others bursting way above us with colorful explosions in the sky.

It was so great that everyone applauded after each firework went off, grateful for the big show!

There were so many different types, and so many different colors as well.  Here's a beautiful green one that exploded right over our house!

As you can tell, Daddy likes taking pictures of the fireworks as they go off.  Several houses got together nearby, and we had a smaller gathering, watching the show our neighbor put on for the kids. They loved it.  Meanwhile, the entire neighborhood was like a war zone, bombs blazing in midair.

It's the Fourth of July, and unlike last year, all of the fireworks were pretty much saved for this one night.  Some years, it sort of goes on and on throughout the week.  But this night was the big one, and the weather was absolutely perfect.  Can we thank God for that a moment?  It was a beautiful night, the skies clear - except for these magnificent displays of light in the air.

Afterwards, we took a walk elsewhere in the neighborhood, and the fireworks were immense!  This is just behind our house, and we always see just the tops of these fireworks, so this year we made the walk around, and it was certainly worth it.  There was a big crowd already gathered, music playing and everyone wearing patriotic shirts, kids riding up and down the street with bicycles - we found a spot along the sidewalk and sat for a while, enjoying the show.

It actually went on for so long, we were leaving to go home before it was all done.  We could still see it all over the tops of the trees:

It was a great night - a wonderful, surprising night, a moment of refreshing and joy.  I know that in some cases, it went on perhaps a little too late into the night.  But how grateful we are to not have to drive off to some place far off to see such a display.  We used to see this in Helen, or one time at the Mall of Georgia, or in some central place where it seemed a whole lot of other people were gathered at once - and it took forever to get out of those places.  Now, we have it literally over our back yard.  We don't have to go anywhere.

Earlier in the day was just as nice.  Here we are at Nana and Ye-Ye's for an incredible feast of burgers, hot dogs, potato salad, beans, corn on the cob and more.  The fun fact about the corn on the cob were the corn holders we used:  these were just purchased by Nana and Ye-Ye at the Corn Palace, in Mitchell, South Dakota.

We ate and played games, and had cupcakes and desserts too.  We even played a round of Bermuda Triangle, which was fun.  It was a great time together with the family, and it was so awesome to have everyone there.

We had a good day today, a much-needed one.  We're so very blessed to be where we are, with those that we are.  Happy Fourth of July!