4th of July 2015 | ted goudie

I drove most of the way from South Carolina after work on Thursday, July 2, stopping for the night east of Indianapolis, then finished up the drive the next morning, insuring I would be home in time for the annual blow-things-up day. Of course, we didn’t wait until the actual 4th to start.

Thankfully, the girls had already made a first visit to Jake’s Fireworks for our initial purchase of things that sparkle, shoot, and ‘splode. We spent part of the afternoon at the pool, ate some dinner, then got down to the most American business of fireworking. I should note that I had some setting on my Fuji screwed up, and these colors are totally cooked – since I wasn’t shooting raw, they’ll be this way forever [moment of silence].

You may recall that this is Aly’s method of protecting herself from fireworks last year as well

On to the actual 4th

The day began as days usually do, or at least as holidays should: eating pancakes naked while squatting in the window for the whole world to see.

I think they were watching a squirrel or something. Ah, kids. I took a moment to relax on the couch, then Leah wanted to show me how much she has missed me.

I missed her too, but I didn’t sit on her like a cat! Anyway, with breakfast and a morning rest out of the way, it was time for morning fireworks.

Being a holiday, this called for water activities. Since we had been to the pool the day before, we decided that today would be “Water The Grass Day”, er, um, “Play In The Sprinkler Day” and set up various places for the children to cool off, including the usual slip n’ slide set up at the bottom of the actual slide.

Leah: “Her is stealing my water!”; Aly: “It’s taking forever to fill up!”; Me: [walk away]

You have a soundtrack in your mind looking at this, don’t you? I’m sure she was singing some song centered around shaking her booty just like you’d imagine she was

The agony of defeat! This is what happens when you hit the slip n’ slide at the bottom of the real slide wrong and get the wind knocked out of you lol

Moar Firewerks!

After cleaning up the childrens and providing them some nourishment, we fulfilled our obligation to return to Jake’s Fireworks and exchange more of our retirement fund for their boxed and rolled danger sticks. The marketing, merchandising, and packaging of fireworks through these stores is quite interesting these days. Many of the fireworks are aimed at women and girls (they were multiple breast cancer-related fireworks), and there are clearly fireworks brand positioning committees doing great work on some of these.