Let Freedom Ring

Last night we celebrated the 4th of July at my parent's house with lots of my extended family--Mema, Aunt Susie & Uncle Tommy, Aunt Kathy & Uncle Larry, my cousin Brent, his wife Katie & their kids Walker and Lauren, and my cousin Ben, his wife Claire & their baby girl Lucy. Plus my parents and brothers, Caroline & Brady, minus Melissa & Emma (who were in Fayetteville visiting Melissa's sister). Whew! Lots of people, lots of noise , lots of fun.

We had food...

The guys played lots of Baggo...

The kids had fun & kept us entertained...

There were cards and conversation...

We had sparklers, smoke bombs, and poppers (which Noah loved both throwing and stomping on)...

And at the end of the night we had fireworks from the country club. Everyone waited on the patio for the fireworks to start, and debated whether we could see them from there or if they had started and we missed them.

(PS, right after I took this picture Mema said "Ooooh, I saw one flash!")
Noah was the only kid that stayed up until time for the fireworks. We were determined for him to see fireworks for the first time, and thankfully he was in a good enough mood to last so late. Turns out, though, that he wasn't the biggest fan. They were really loud from where we were but pretty hard to see between all the tall trees. He acted interested for a minute and then all of a sudden got upset about the noise. Mom took him inside and they watched from there for a minute:

And then we decided to get in the car to head home so we could see them on the way. We stopped right at the entrance of the club with a great view of the show but minimal noise with the windows rolled up. We looked in the backseat and saw that Noah was staring at them, and then Josh and I just watched the fireworks for several minutes. Well next time we looked back, this is what we saw:

There's no telling how long he'd been doing that! I guess he decided they hurt his ears AND his eyes. So, we drove on home and Noah kept his hands over his eyes like this for at least 2 or 3 minutes, saying "bye bye, fireworks!" Ha! He crashed out as soon as we got home, and I wasn't far behind him. All in all, 4th of July 2010 was a great time with family!