Boys...

...on the 4th.


It is probably the one thing I miss about Missouri. Legal firework fun. I can't believe I just said that - me, the mom who's worked for 2 Plastic Surgeons and can run down the list of all the bad things that can happen thanks to firework play. (that is actually a joke in our house - my hyper concern about that stuff). But, in Missouri, fireworks are legal and we developed a tradition of giving ourselves a budget of about $200 (alot of money for us), making the trip to the Firework Store and each of us picking out our favorites. Scott and Zach always wanted the BIG, LOUD stuff;Carah usually went for the BIG, PRETTY stuff; Nathan was so little he was afraid of it all and I just liked the Pooping Turtles. Then on the 4th, we'd gather in the front on the cul de sac and the fun began. We were able to put on fire work displays which rivaled some of the small shows around here and tt was dangerous, good, safe (thanks to Daddy) fun.

Flip forward to Chicago and we find that not only are fireworks not legal but the Oswego Police are on a mission to ding you for illegal fireworks (not a bad thing according to that hyper concerned mom in me). Well, mix that with a superbly raining 4th and what we ended up with were a few smoke bombs, party poppers, snaps and some sparklers. No matter though, in true boy fashion, my boys made the best of it. We had enough smoke to kill a man in our backyard and party popper/snaps mess all over the place. It's all about the male bonding :) so it was well worth it.

Luckily, the rain did let up so that we could watch fireworks from a couple of different places (including a neighbor, who managed to dodge the Police) from our front yard and everyone, except Gracie (but that's a story for another day) not only, had a good day but managed to stay out of the E/R.