Celebrating 4TH of July

Another July 4TH has come and gone. That means one thing to me....summer is half over already! But I did take some time to celebrate. Saturday the 3RD, after working my normal shift, I went home and got cleaned up. My friends, Scott and Lisa, were having people over that night, as they do every year for the holiday celebration. The day before I had made a Key Lime Cheesecake as my contribution to the meal that we were having.

The 4TH is also Logan's (Scott and Lisa's son) birthday. Their other son Kaden celebrates his birthday on July 10Th. So I had gifts to distribute to the boys. With all my things in hand I made my way to their house. Last year at this time I was in Minneapolis for a family reunion. Remember this?
But this year was a little different. Typically Scott's family from MN would be here on this weekend. And we would all celebrate Logan's birthday before having the celebration of the holiday. Many people would be in attendance...roughly 40-50 I think. Instead, we totalled maybe 20-25. And there wasn't a big birthday party for Logan ahead of time. But because a few of us had brought him gifts, he was allowed to open them a day early. And Kaden opened his as well as the following weekend was filled with other activities for many of us. I wasn't sure myself if I would be able to go back to their house just for his birthday or not.
I arrived first (shocking!) and helped Scott prepare the Sloppy Joe's that he had started working on. Lisa was at an appointment when I got there. Once that was finished and other people were arriving, we settled out on the deck to visit and enjoy some cocktails.
Scott and Lisa have a small 3 foot depth above ground pool and all the little kids went swimming until it was time to eat. Then we moved out to the garage and onto the driveway to fill a plate with all the different food that other visitors had brought to go with the Sloppy Joe's. Then the older kids wanted to start doing their fireworks.
The smaller kids wanted to go the tiny park across the street. So I and a couple other adults walked them over and played for awhile.
The humidity level wasn't terrible but after sitting out in it for a bit a few of us went inside to cool off for awhile and visit. We could still hear all the noise of fireworks from around the neighborhood and if one would look around the sky at the different horizons, you could spot the bright lights from them through the trees and see all the smoke fill the night air.
When I finally decided to go home, it was hard to concentrate on the road ahead of me. I was wanting to watch the fireworks around me as I drove. They were everywhere. I knew that trying to sleep would be difficult from all the noise that was inevitably going to be heard near my own house. And sure enough. Inside my own house I could see them and hear them going off all around.
I'm pretty sure it was around midnight when I discovered the lack of popping and booming that I had been hearing for a couple hours. Thankfully I didn't have to get up early for work the next morning. And I knew that the next day would bring some of the same sounds once again as it was officially the 4TH of July.