Fourth of July 2012

I know I 'm a little late for the 4th of July post but.... everyone is celebrating the 4th up until this weekend anyway. We had planned on going down town to watch a professional display but the weather report said probable downpours maybe with hail so we decided to stay at home. But with no plans on that we had to run out and find some fire works. And we did.

  Early in the day we went to my Aunts house for some swimming and visiting with relatives.

We left just before the down pour, there was no hail. Thankfully the rain let up just before dark and we got ready to light up the sky.

V set up a Chinese lantern. I don't know how American that is but it was a flag lantern.

After bar-b-queing the ribs for dinner. Husband got the bonfire started with an old wooden crate. Everything was really wet, so let me tell you the boys got talent when it comes to fire.

Me and V set some tiki torches around to chase off mosquitoes and there was nothing left but to wait for the sun to set.

Hubie using his Florida coozy and watching the beautiful sun set.

Husband stuck with his beer but I wiped up a pretty good rum drink. That you can check out out the recipe part of the blog.

See what I mean talent!

We saw these great fireworks coming from our neighbors and decided to wonder over. Turns out they had purchases about $400 worth. And we had a great view right in our back yard.

Sparkler!

Ground firework with firework feature on the camera.

 We lit our own off too. And every time one went up the neighbor on the other side of us cheered. It was and impromptu block party. Even though most of the neighbors on the block were gone.

We all really enjoyed the night.

It's Hot!!! And Dry!!

We have been going a long time with out rain. I was told today that our rain quota is the same as it was a few years ago when everything caught on fire. We are all hopping that we can get some significant rain before the forth so we don't end up with fire work restrictions. Some counties have already banned them and I heard one county even banned sparklers. What's the Forth of July with out fireworks? Oh sure you can go to those city displays but it's just not the same thrill as potentially setting your self, your house or your children on fire. We all want those home fire works. We need to blow stuff up. Even if it's our hands. So please let it rain, rain, rain.

Plus this year we are going to have out of state visitors who've never experienced a Florida Forth of July. The way the rockets red glare lights up the lakes as they fly at you from a barge parked in the center of the lake. You just don't get that in other states. The way that bottle rocket possibly sets the spanish moss hanging in the old oak to sparkling. Yes... We need rain!

It's been so dry the cat tails all popped and are sending fuzzy seeds everywhere.

Lou's big New Years Eve party.

We arrived around 4:00. No tent to set up this year. Since we didn't have the kids with us we decided to sleep in the mini van. We removed the back seats and put in a blow up mattress. We were excited to meat Lou's new girl, Robin. She was very nice and ready to party, and even though she wasn't a very outdoorsy type I think she had a good time. Except for when this weird bug was attacking her.

Lou had the pit for the fire all dug before we showed up. It was around 8 to10 feet across. The bigger the better.

Shortly after we arrived we enjoyed some hors devours. Kim made brunshager or something like that. It's a dip made out of liverwurst. Chris really liked it. Bonnie and Charlie brought rum balls and mince meat pie. We had some chips. It was all good. The best thing was the 15lbs of smoked pulled pork that Lou cooked up for dinner. Kim also made his famous chili. And Lou had his black eye peas in the slow cooker. No one can ever wait for New Years day for them and they get sampled all night.

Soon the Christmas trees were dressed in women's underwear with beer box hats. Then with a big kaboom the fire is lit by dowsing the trees in gasoline and shooting them with roman candles.

Chris was king of the fire till he fell in. Which is a after school special about being intoxicated and making redneck hot air balloons in a fire big enough to cook a man as big as Chris in.

Don't worry. He pushed himself out right away and escaped with only a small burn in the palm of his hand. Which is a good experiment of the effects of adrenaline on intoxicated people. Everyone suddenly wasn't.

This is some of the fireworks that we had that night. They were amazing.

All in all we had a great time and survived into the year 2010. Although the next day we woke up in a van. One of my teachers way back in high school use to love to say. "Your going to end up in a van down by the river."

Happy New Year 2010!!!

Click here to see a video of the fire being started.

http://s372.photobucket.com/albums/oo165/maimom01/?action=view&current=NewYear09057.flv