post 4th of July letdown

Why is it that the fun always equates to a sort of jet-lagged feeling the next day?

...perhaps because the two-year-old did not go to bed until 11:48, which is a new record.

In any case, we did have a lovely 4th of July. Neil decided that we should continue our "tradition" of going out to breakfast as a family on the 4th (which we did exactly once 3 years ago and never had the opportunity to do again), so we had a lovely trip to IHOP. It really was lovely--all three of us were well-behaved and ate our respective breakfasts. Then we took Neil to campus so he could work on some research, so the lucky guy got to spend the majority of the afternoon either doing research or studying for his qualifiers.

We had a BBQ with six other families in our ward, which was lots of fun. It half-heartedly rained, so the air was heavy and muggy, and all the kids managed to get pretty sweaty (and the dads who played frisbee, which Neil did for about three hours. I leave it to you to guess the condition he was in afterwards). Then we went over to a field by campus to watch the fireworks, and got there two hours early so we had plenty of time to speculate on the vagaries of human nature. Something about the crowd mentality seemed to lower a lot of social mores--for instance, one woman asked a couple of our friends if she could "just rest for a minute" on their lawn chairs because she was tired from walking across the field. The "minute" turned into about eight other people who took over not only their chairs but their blankets and then proceeded to blow cigarette smoke over the entire gathering, which included two newborn infants, four pregnant women, and ten other small children. They sat there until the fireworks were over and then left without a word of explanation. Interesting. Abigail also got trampled by a bunch of frisbee-playing teenagers (literally--she was playing on the grass with a toy about seven feet from my chair and a guy who must have weighed about 200 lbs ran RIGHT over her), who coolly continued with their game while Abigail wailed and we tried to help her walk off her limp and their frisbee continued to smash into our chairs and strollers.

And then there was the lovely man who came over with enough glowy sticks for all of the kids to have one, and the thoughtful members of our gathering who brought enough snacks and sparklers for everyone to share (Andrea! Yay for you!). Just interesting to see different sides of human nature.

Anyway, we had a really fun time watching the fireworks--the finale was probably the best I had ever seen--and Abigail loved the "sparkly stars" and the "big booms!" And blessedly, rain started pouring down about an hour after we got home, so all the neighborhood fireworks stopped shortly after midnight and we were able to sleep.

I really wish I'd remembered my camera yesterday so I could have documented the whole thing, so hopefully I'll be able to snag some pictures from other more prepared people and post those later! In particular, I wish I'd been able to get a picture of Abigail with her first sparkler--I didn't buy any because I was worried about her being too young, but I think having the chance to hold two was just about right. She thought they were pretty neat. And we loved watching the little tiny firecrackers that people had brought--we sort of wandered around for awhile looking at those. Very fun. All in all, it was a lovely Fourth, and hopefully a solid night's sleep will make us all chipper and cheery tomorrow!

And Sarah, in answer to your question, Beethoven Lives Upstairs was definitely my favorite. If you haven't heard that one, you're really missing out!