Our 4th of July did not go exactly as planned, but we still had a great day. It’s amazing how even though plans don’t always work out as long as you are together as a family you can have a good time.
We started by having a picnic at a local park with my brother, sister-in-law, and their one-year-old daughter. They are in Boise for the summer doing an internship before my brother goes back east to law school. It’s nice to have family close to celebrate holidays with (the rest of our family lives five hours away). My kids played on the toys. We practiced throwing Frisbees. My four-year-old, Alysta, surprised us with how well she could throw. My son, Tyler, was getting pretty good at catching too.
After the park we planned on going to a local swimming pool. But when we got there the pool was closed. My girls began to cry, “We want to go swimming.” Another pool was open, but only for four hours and we knew it was going to be so crowded. So we improvised. We went and bought a slip and slide and some giant squirt guns (which were almost as big as my girls) and went home. We filled up the wading pool and squirt guns, and attached the hose to the slip and slide. My kids had a great time playing in the back yard until it started to rain.
The weather was horrible and the wind intense (which ended up knocking down our gate). So we spent the rest of the evening inside talking and laughing together. My husband did brave the storm to cook the hamburgers that I had planned for dinner, because after all you can’t have the 4th of July without a backyard (or inside) barbeque.
Finally the storm blew over and we were able to light our fireworks. We let our kids stay up for the event. The nicest thing was that our neighbors spent hundreds of dollars on illegal fireworks that shoot into the air. So we had a great fireworks show from our front yard and didn’t have to go anywhere. All in all it was a great day.