The Fourth

Yesterday was the 4th of July.  It fell on a Saturday this year, so I was off on Friday.  Once again, we have been in a very rainy weather pattern.  Friday, it rained on and off all day.  We were tired of sitting inside so we went to the pool during a dry period that afternoon...that didn't mean it was sunny though!  We were about the only ones there and it was dreary out, but oh well!  The kids enjoyed it.

Saturday, we had planned to go to the big parade in downtown Woodstock.  We were all excited about it - prepared to go sit in the rain even.  Everything had said it would be held rain or shine and we knew it might rain so we left at 8:50 to go get a good seat and everything.  We get out of our van and start scoping it out and a policeman rides by and tells us it's just been cancelled.  Can you say disappointed???  I was just as sad as the kids were - if not more!  We were just really frustrated because they said it would happen rain or shine and they didn't follow through with that.  We would understand if there was severe weather moving through or something like that - but they were just calling for light rain.  And that didn't even end up happening!  So we walked around for a minute, the kids got a balloon and we went home.  Bah humbug. 

We felt like we needed to do something a little fun for the kids so we went to this new place close-by - Stars and Strikes.  It's a new bowling place with an arcade, laser tag, bumper cars, etc.  We had an hour and a half wait to bowl - so we played some games and ate while we waited.  The kids loved it.  And Rachel almost beat Michael at a game of bowling! 

We came home and all took a nap since we knew we'd be out late to see fireworks.  We left at 6:00 and got a good spot and set up camp.  Everything was going fine - I was excited because this was the first time that the four of us had ever been together to see the fireworks.  We tried to go a couple of years ago, but guess what?  They got rained out.  We hung out, listened to music, ate dinner, played with new friends - it was nice.  The radar was making us a little nervous though - more rain was set to hit us around the time of the fireworks.  And it did - but not too bad.  We got in the van for a few minutes and continued to watch. 

We got out easily and came home to more fireworks in the neighborhood.  We finished off our sparklers - this was both of their first experience with those... 

And walked across the street and watched theirs go off for a few minutes.  

So, it turned out to be a good day even though it didn't start off like it.  Rachel was a little let down that we waited for three hours for only 15 minutes of fireworks...

Back to work tomorrow...