Happy 4th of July!

First off, let me put my patriotic plug in here. I am glad to be an American. This land of the free is taken for granted way to often and I thought I would take just a quick second to express my love and appreciation to God, active soldiers, veterans of all military forces, as well as our founding fathers. I am grateful we can live, work, worship, and enjoy life, in this free and prosperous country of ours. GOD BLESS AMERICA!!

Our family had a great 4th of July!

We took the kids out to Fish Hook, which is a little spot on the snake river about 30 minutes out of town. We met up with about 12 other families for some boating, swimming and picnicking. This is a great place for kids because they have a shallow roped off swimming area. A group would go out boating while the rest of the people on shore enjoyed splashing around in the water. The kids loved throwing mud at each other, jumping off the docks, and floating around on inner tubes. 

After our day at the river we packed up and headed back into town. 

On our way home we made a quick stop in Burbank to grab some fun family fireworks (and a few illegal ones to insure the night really would be fun).

After loading up on explosives, it was off to Grandpa Ostler's (who live next to Grandpa Rose so both families meet in the culdesac) for the traditional "eat more junk than you should, and see what we can blow up" Fourth of July festivities. 

I joke here, sort of. While we usually do eat more food than should be consumed in a month, we don't actually try to "blow things up". Really the goal is to see if we can make it all night without sending anyone, of any age, to the hospital with any worse than a 1st degree burn. We have had pretty good luck with this goal over the years which has made for some good memories each Fourth of July with close family on both sides of the culdesac. 

The second goal we have with each of these firework escapades, is that we try not to set the vacant lot next to the house on fire. We succeed at this most of the time. But this year, Dan's brother tested his luck by allowing about a 2 foot diameter patch of weeds start to blaze. 

NOTE TO DAVID - Hold the roman candle up and away from the dry brush next time. The "down and directly pointing at it pose didn't work, dude!!  

Here's Hailey demonstrating the correct way to hold a roman candle.

Thanks to Dans size 13 and some great foot work, no fire trucks were needed. 

However, Speaking of fire trucks...

After getting home for the evening and putting kids to bed, I went to the couch with a book. Dan grabbed one too and we settled back for a while. At 11:30pm Dan looked out the window and with a bolt came flying out of his seat shouting about a house on fire across the street. 

He grabbed his shoes and went screaming down the street while I called 911. 

With flames jumping higher than the roof tops we thought the worst for these neighbors, it looked like the whole front of their house and roof were a blaze, but as we rounded the corner we discovered the flames were actually at the street and not coming from the house. 

It took the firemen about 15mins to put out the fire.

Turns out a kid was shooting fireworks in the street and one shot under the bushes. Sucks to be that kid. FIREWORKS ILLEGAL IN KENNEWICK, and destruction of property! YIKES. 

At least the house wasn't affected. Can you imagine if it would have been.  

And that's a wrap on our exciting, fun filled 4th of July.