4th of July

Happy 4th of July!
So this post isn't catching up from all of the stuff I've failed to post over the past six weeks or so, but in the interest of not falling further behind, here we go...

What was I thinking????
Yesterday I had the bright idea of making a family evening out to see fireworks. (I have such fond memories as a kid of going to a fireworks show with my family.) The City of Arlington had big festivities around the lake, concluding with a firework show. Sounds like fun, huh?

Well, we decided to park at a nearby church that the City was running a shuttle from. Nolan was super excited about riding a school bus!

Once we got there, we kind of checked it out for a bit, listened to music, and then headed to the bounce houses. Craig was a such a sport. Nolan chose a bounce house he was interested in playing in, they waited in line, and just as it was Nolan's turn, he decided he was too scared to jump. (Where did this timid side of my no-fear son come from??? This is a new development lately.) Long story short, they went through this charade about four times, all ending with Nolan never jumping in a single bounce house.

For whatever reason, I figured the fireworks would start as soon as the sun went down. To my surprise, they didn't start until 9:45! Fortunately, both kiddos were doing just fine and enjoying people watching, so we stuck it out.

We didn't have the best view of the fireworks, but that was probably best, seeing as though Nolan was kind of scared by them. (You'll have to see another post I have yet to write about our trip to the baseball game; that explains his fear of fireworks.)

So as soon as the fireworks were over, we packed everyone up, which is no easy thing when you're traveling with a 2-year-old and an 8-month-old! We finally got going, just to stand in line for about 30-45 minutes to catch the shuttle back to our car.

Holy cow! It's about 11:15 before we made it back to our car! What were we thinking??? Nolan and Ella were both such sports and seemed to enjoy our family night out. As soon as we got home, we quickly bathed them and put them to bed. Our babies didn't get to bed until close to midnight, which is ridiculously WAY past our bedtime, especially for two babies!!

I think we'll skip the fireworks show in the future (at least until they're much older), and we'll aim for catching the July 4th parade in the morning. As exhausting as it all was, it turned out to be a pretty enjoyable evening.