FOURTH OF JULY
Ryan took care of the boys while I slept in much, much too late. Then I started working on a barbecue. Yum! We grilled burgers, had tater tots, corn-on-the-cob, watermelon, pasta salad, and some other stuff I can't remember right now. We ate until we were stuffed, then got read to go to the parade at 6:30 pm.
The parade goes through downtown Boise. It wasn't anything spectacular, but the boys really enjoyed it. There were lots of fancy and antique cars. Jared's favorite, I think, was the Miata club. He was looking down the parade route and exclaimed, "Cars with eyes!" When they finally got to us, we saw what he meant. They kept turning their fold-down headlights on and off, which makes them "blink" or "wink" their "eyes." The last one in the line had even stuck some teeth in the grill, which gave it a cute smile.
It was very hot, about 103. We were glad when the firetrucks came and hosed off all willing spectators!
It was still quite light when the parade was over, so we came home and tried out our new Arctic Twister. It mixes stuff into your ice cream, basically making DQ Blizzards at home. We tried out Heath bars, a brownie we'd frozen, and red & blue M&M's. It was quite fun. Apparently people either love or hate their Arctic Twisters. It seems that some of them have defective on/off buttons, requiring us to hold it down the entire time we want it on. The good news about this is that there are quite a few of them at thrift stores. We got ours for $5. The original price was upwards of $60, although now they seem to be down to about $15.
Zach was worn out by this time, so he slept through our dessert.
After second helpings, we grabbed our box of fireworks, and poor sleepy Zach, and headed outdoors. We walked a little ways down our street and could see the city firework show through a large break in the trees. Then we set off our own smaller fireworks in the street in front of our duplex. A 4-year old boy and his mother tagged along with us, which was great for Jared. He and his new friend danced like crazy people while the fireworks shot sparks into the air. They fed off each other's energy and both had a great time.
By the time we emptied our fireworks box, it was midnight. The whole neighborhood wasn't done until 1:00, though. The air was so smoky, it looked like fog! We got two very sleepy boys to bed and fell in ourselves. We all took very long naps the next day (ooh, except for Ryan, who of course had to work. Sorry Ryan!)