Hooray for a long holiday weekend, right? We filled our long Independence Day weekend with day trips, family reunions, fireworks, picnic meals, and movie nights.
Here are a few of my favorite moments from our long holiday weekend.
A surprise blooms
While watching the children play together in our backyard, I discovered a day lily growing in an unexpected section of the yard. We have a few day lilies that grow to the left of our shed, and I know that these flowers spread easily. However, I didn’t expect them to suddenly begin growing on the other side of our shed without any help or encouragement from us. Discovering this lovely orange bloom was such a pleasant surprise!
That was actually pretty fun, Mom!
After a family day trip, my teenage son said to me, “that was actually pretty fun, Mom.” It was like music to my ears! Our adventure didn’t start off as smoothly as I had hoped it would. I had not researched our destination as well as I had thought. My list of stops was not listed in an efficient order, and the map we had picked up from a visitor center was no help at all. Eventually, we were able to develop a new game plan, and I was pleased that the remainder of the day went pretty smoothly. I was even more pleased to hear that even my teenager enjoyed the excursion as well.
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Fireworks over the water
My father-in-law lives on a lake, and for the last few years, he has invited us to join him on his boat for the firework show over that lake. And, it is so much fun! Our entire family looks forward to this outing each year. I am convinced that this is THE BEST way to watch a fireworks show – the seats on the boat are comfy, the gentle rocking of the boat is relaxing, there are very few bugs when you are in the middle of the lake, and you’re not crowded in amidst a bunch of strangers. Not to mention that the twilight hours are especially lovely from the middle of the lake.
This year, we enjoyed s’mores around a campfire on shore before we headed out on the boat. The children especially enjoyed gathering small sticks to add to the fire. Grandpa brought out some sawdust from his workshop to toss into the fire, and the kids were amazed by the sudden, almost magical fire flashes this created.
The best part of this excursion was watching our children enjoy the fireworks show. Our teenage son was experimenting with his camera happily trying to snap the perfect picture of the bright, colorful bursts of light. Our eight-year-old wore a wide open-mouthed grin on his face as he watched the show in awe. And, our five-year-old kept exclaiming “Woah!” after especially bright firework bursts. At one point, she turned around and asked us adults “Did you guys see that?”, and when we responded that we had indeed seen it, she said “Well, keep watching it some more!”
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What a lovely holiday. Sure looking forward to those long warm days again.
Watching fireworks from a boat sounds fun! I want to experience it. Last year we celebrated the 4th in Lone Tree, Colorado and it was really great! Looking forward for the fireworks show tomorrow. (My City will do it on the 3rd.)