You should've seen the street the next day

The 4th of July is my friend Adria's most favorite holiday in the whole world, even more than Christmas. Now I personally think that's just wrong (sorry Auntie Aiya) but it's definitely up there on my list of favs. Since we've lived at our house we've had a BBQ tradition of inviting almost everyone we know to come and witness the war zone that is our neighborhood during this festive Yay-I-Get-To-Blow-Stuff-Up holiday.
This year was toned down in more ways than one. I had mentioned before we were keeping the guest list much smaller due to finances (and sanity reasons) and my crazy ex-neighbors have moved their insanity to another neck of the woods, so this year was more mellow. But not less fun :)

This was the first year Caelen understood that fireworks were cool to watch. She wasn't scared at all and even did a sparkler with Mommy (until she moved it too close to her face and I took it away and said, OK all done!) We moved our fire pit out to the front lawn and watched the neighbors party hard. There was a live band 2 doors down and plenty of illegal fireworks, so Caelen and I left the warmth and company of the fire pit crowd and ventured out into the street where we could see down two different streets. We danced to the music and Oooo-ed and Ahhh-ed over the show. I think Caelen thinks that fireworks make music after last night.

Finally as 10:00 pm arrived our neighborhood actually obeyed the noise ordnance and the sudden halt in activity sent most our guests off to the comfort of their beds. The wee ones had stayed up at least 3 hours past their bed times but it was worth it, if only for this one picture :)

Oh and I say "most of our guests" because Thomas's brother and his girlfriend stayed until midnight to play a game of Settlers of Catan. It was a fun 4th, much less stressful than years past and I was so proud of my brave Caelen.