4th!

The girls woke up on the morning of The 4th asking about the fireworks.

They spent all day asking about the fireworks.

Around 3:00 they started planning their outfits for the fireworks.

They wanted to see fireworks.

Problem was, rain was forecast on and off all day. And in fact, I have never seen bizzaro rain like this before. Probably 3 or 4 times the sky would turn a deep dark gray and water would explode in the air. Afterward, it would clear entirely and we would see the sun again, creating an odd sort of steam in the heat. So, should we stay or should we go? The fact that we parents could not answer the question caused a blip in the brains of the children, sort of like what would happen on those old fashioned big black CD's we used to call records. Scratch thunk are we going to the fireworks?
Scratch thunk are we going to the fireworks?
Scratch thunk are we going to the fireworks?

(wait for it....)

Finally around 8:00 we decided to give it a whirl. Mind you, 8:00 is Genea's bedtime. But with all the other changes disrupting her anyway, what the heck, add a few more. The Husband and I, we generally have ambitious plans early on and as we lose energy and brain cells throughout the day, we jettison our ideas from our own sinking ship. Go early and have dinner at the festival? Meh. Nope. Bring a cooler full of drinks? Meh, no ice in the freezer. Forget it.

So we (I) packed up a few things and left the house. Outside it felt like we were in the shower with the water on scalding hot. Probably 90 degree's and 90% humidity. A hundred years ago we lived in Columbia, South Carolina for about 5 minutes during the late summer. It felt like that. We headed downtown towards the big festival the city puts on every year, with bands and beer tents every 2 steps and tons of awesome food every 10 steps, and set about the process of trying to find a good spot to watch the fireworks. People start coming out around noon to stake out their spots for the show and so the really good spots were simply out of our reach and we never even bothered with those area's. We snaked our way through the hundreds of hot, smelly people, who had been at the festival for many hot, humid hours.  What is it about a festival that inspires the hairiest of men to strip dignity and shirts off in public? There should be a law. With the rain and the heat and all that beer, one might imagine the smells rivaled those of the dead. Icky. Super raging colossal icky.

But we shoved on.
(wait for it....)

I want to take a minute to tell everyone about the personal sacrifice I made here, for the love of the children. I love fry bread. Love it more than chocolate. Love it more than ice cream. Love it more than buttercream cake with buttercream frosting (though that one is close). I LOVE fry bread. It's that stuff you can only get at festivals usually, sometimes it's called Elephant Ears too. It seems to be a batter that is sort of snaked into a vat of boiling oil until it turns a beautiful golden brown color. The Fry Bread Master then retrieves it, shaking powdered sugar over the magical result. Oooooooh, it's a fabulous thing. If it is prepared by a highly skilled Fry Bread Master,  a luscious sugary grease should blow up in your mouth after just the right amount of crisp is bitten into.

Oh yeah, um, anyway. I had to forgo my fry bread for several reasons. Purchasing one item, any item, is the start of a slippery slope. Once they know we can buy things, the children suddenly want one of everything. Then, the mess. Then we would need drinks and after drinks, a bathroom. Well there are none of those. Just port o' pots. Right. No. For the children, for the love of the children. Lastly, with the heat and the excitement we raised our puke potential to a level orange  (serious threat).

We finally found a good spot, sort of. It was behind some of the early stakers who brought their living room furniture with them evidently. They had a coffee table between their recliners and the space above the coffee table was just perfect for 2 small children to see over!

We waited. And waited and waited. Genea was about out of her skin in the 2 inches of unused space we had marked out for ourselves. Up- down up- down twirl-around up-down. The show not scheduled to start until 9:45 (does that seem unusually late to anyone else?) it blessedly began quite close to on time. It was then that we realized we had made a horrible mistake. The fireworks were going off directly over the tree's we had perched by. Sigh-double -sigh. SIGH!

Okay, also at this point the sky began to spit on us.

After a few minutes I scoped out a better spot that Genea and I could cram ourselves into just in front of the living room when one of the inhabitants got up to pee. We were sitting in the dirt but the view was better. The sky continued to spit and the size of the spit got bigger causing a group a few rocks down from us to abruptly leave. Score! I moved Genea and I, and then Teena down to the rocks where we had a great view. The rain continued its assault, picking up pace until there was no denying, it was raining. I had stashed some garbage bags in our stuff to sit on in case the ground was wet and they were repurposed to cover us instead. The wind picked up and our garbage bags were flapping, the rain was falling and I was torqued so uncomfortably on my filthy rock that I knew I would be attached to my tens unit for the next few days.

And it was totally worth it because fireworks are freaking awesome!!! But it was even more awesome to have the girls see fireworks for the first time! I could have watched their beautiful little faces instead of the show because they were that thrilled! They were amazed and awed and a little scared the droopy ones would fall on them just like I was when I was little!

It was so cool.