Independence Day Celebration

It was time to celebrate our Nation's Birthday and Independence.  We planned to spend the day with Cyn & Josh, but after the Pelican trip, I really did not relish the idea of driving in one day.  So, we went down to the South Bay on Tuesday night.  We were lucky and managed to book a room at the Manhattan Beach Marriott for almost no money.  

We got some much needed shopping done at Trader Joe's and Barnes and Noble and then we met Mike Harris at Islands for supper.  He arrived with gifts: Scotch for Mama and 3 - 2 pound bags of Jelly Bellys for the girls. Mike is now, officially, the girls' favorite person. Haha!


It's been great to catch up with old friends, but the bad thing for me, is that Mike knew me when we were in elementary school.  He spilled my secret which is that Jordan is just like her Mama.  Ugh! I am no longer living it down when Jordan does something that is "Jordan."

The next morning, we got up and ready for the celebrations to begin!! I had purchased special shirts for the girls, and I loved how cute they turned out.  The only bad thing is that the shirts are white, so they were filthy in a very short time.

We had breakfast at Noah's Bagels in El Segundo. The girls thought it was cool that there was a shop dedicated to bagels.  We stopped for fireworks and then at Vons and picked up all the ingredients for the Cranberry Walnut Salad that was to be our contribution to the day, and then we arrived at Cyn & Josh's house.

It's great that the kids always act like they haven't seen each other in forever! Cyn & Josh had a number of people show up for the day, most of whom we knew: Wayne and Amy, Natasha and Mark, for example, and the largest surprise was that Mike Harris actually showed up! Whoo-hoo! Cyn hadn't seen Mike since we were, well, maybe 10 or 11 years old! It's been a while!

By evening time, the children were getting restless. It wasn't quite dark enough to light the fireworks, but we let the kids have a blast with the sparklers.  

On a side-note, I really wish we could purchase every sparkler that we could find and take them to our house in AV. It is HOURS of quiet play time with the kids, and I think it is AWESOME!!!

Each of the kids had about 2 or 3 boxes of sparklers, and we just let them have a great time.  Even Wayne wanted to get in on the fun and let off a Roman Candle in the backyard.

It was finally time to get out front with the pile of fireworks that everyone contributed, and we had a great time watching the show. 

 Can you tell that Amy hates her picture taken?  HeeHee

 Taylor wanted to have one of the yummy cupcakes that Cyn made

 There is nothing quite so funny as seeing the orthopedic surgeon lighting off fireworks.  

 My heart hit my shoes when I realized that Jordan was lighting off some of the fireworks - and NOT the little ones! Holy shit!

 Well, I caught a GREAT picture of the Roman Candle that Jordan lit off, and she managed to keep her hands and all of her fingers!

 Jordan liked it so much that she did it again - until Mama yelled at her to stop!

 Then, Cyn's heart hit her shoes when Daniel went out to light some fireworks!

 Not only did this one have a great name, but the Funky Monkey also had the best show.

We had to get home right after the fireworks were done, but it was a great day. We hated leaving our friends, and it really sucked because the drive home was horrible.  There was traffic all the way to Glen Helen.