LeRoy was very excited to be in the city parade this year. His BMW (bonus from Legal Shield) was all decked out with the company logo and he had 1000 fliers ready to hand out. The boys were also excited to participate in the parade. Nathan and Hyrum would be waving flags out of the sunroof and Derek and Justin would be walking along the sidewalks on both sides of the street to hand out the fliers. Erika was at the park watching over the Legal Shield booth until LeRoy could get there after the parade. Levi and I weren't sure what our responsibilities were and we didn't really want to sit by ourselves to watch the parade so I asked what we could do to help. We were to look pretty. It's a good thing Levi does that so well.
The 4th of July is LeRoy's favorite holiday of the whole year and that has rubbed off onto our kids. Sometimes I wonder if they really understand that we celebrate the freedoms of our country instead of just the freedom to blow things up. On the night of the 3rd, LeRoy surprised the boys (without letting me know ahead of time) with 3/4 sticks of dynamite that he was given by our employee (I'm thinking reduction in pay if there are any injuries). Derek and Justin were so excited they looked like little boys at Christmas-time. When Levi heard about it he ditched the party with his friends (which made me happy that they were going to blow stuff up) and stayed to party with his dad and brothers.
It was ridiculous!!! Ridiculously loud, ridiculously destructive, ridiculously messy, and ridiculously exciting for the boys. The higher stuff flew in the air and the further it spread across the yard the more the boys cheered. They had to hide behind the work trailer and shed so that they wouldn't get hit but they would put their hands in life threatening danger by peeking their iPods and cell phones out to video it. Even though they were at the very back corner of our one acre lot, my heart and ears couldn't handle the extremely loud boom of each stick so I went to the furthest, most hidden away corner of the house and it still sounded like someone was shooting a rifle next to me and the window rattled so close to shattering that I moved to the other side of the room. The important thing is that the boys had a good time. The next day the important thing was that they get all the metal, plastic, wood and glass scraps out of the yard. I could not believe how much stuff they had blown up.
A couple of days later LeRoy was putting new light fixtures in for one of our neighbors and they got talking about the fireworks during the week. The neighbor told LeRoy that the night of the 3rd he had to give his dogs sedatives because of the fireworks, which he thought sounded more like dynamite, going on. These two dogs are more the size of polar bears than dogs so I'm sure that wasn't easy. When he found out that it was us, and that it was dynamite not fireworks, he told LeRoy that next year we should give him a heads up so he can sedate the dogs without them going crazy first and that we should invite him over for the fun.
Luckily, we didn't hear from any of our other neighbors. I'm pretty sure there were some who were a little frustrated with us.
On the night of the 4th they had a more traditional (less dangerous) night of basic fireworks with the little boys. It worries me how comfortable my boys are with fire but they have a good time. The 5th of July is the only morning of the entire year that the little boys sleep in. During the summer it doesn't get dark here until almost 10pm and the whole subdivision is going until at least 12:30 so it's a pretty late night for them.
And on the 5th of July I had my yearly sigh of relief and prayer of gratitude that no one lost a finger or eye and that we didn't burn anything down.
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