I heart America

Another 4th of July in our nation's capital means another year of sticky heat, heavy humidity, rainstorms that evacuate everyone off the Mall at least twice that day, and thousands of people willing to brave all of the above—us included. :) No matter the craziness of being in the district on the 4th, there's just something about being surrounded by the Capitol building, the Washington, the Jefferson, and the Lincoln monuments, flanked by the White House on the side—when that first firework of red, white and blue shoots up into the night, it makes the whole experience worth it. Not to mention the rockin' finale that knocks your socks off. I love fireworks! And I LOVE the 4th.

Last year we watched the show from the Jefferson Memorial, and we were a little disappointed at how far the fireworks are from there, so this year we stole a sweet spot next to our friends Rachel and James who were nice enough to let us jump in on their location in front of the Washington (facing the Lincoln) 30 mins before show time. I'm SOOO glad we were there this year, it was such a great view. We also got to meet up with Nate and Stephanie and their cute little girl Abby (she did so good with the fireworks!!), which was loads of fun since we've never got to hang out with them before. I'm glad Jon made me carry the tarp in for the day, because we were a hit when the ground was all wet and it started to rain again! We all got cozy sitting on half the tarp and pulling the other half up like a sleeping bag. How clever are we?


















After facing the metro madness and making it home an hour and a half later, Jon and I were totally stoked to light up our own fireworks (no, that's not a metaphor) we'd picked up at the econo-firework shop in some little somewhere, NY, on our anniversary trip. After trying one firework in the small parking lot next to us for some small apartments, we were SUPER embarrassed by how LOUD it was, considering it was 11:00, and we were the only ones in sight. Picture a whistling pete going off in the middle of Temple Square. Awkward!!! Maybe it wasn't that bad, but we were totally ducking and holding our breath until it was over. The second it stopped screeching and spitting fire, we grabbed all the evidence and bailed as fast as we could in hopes of avoiding the creation of neighbor-enemies.

Instead we lit up our little works at a nearby park, and we had a great post-show. People were walking home from the metro and cheering us on, it was kind of weird. But we had fun and got some cool photos. At the end we played around with huge sparklers and our camera and tried writing in the air...maybe it will work a little better when we invest in a new camera, but we've included the pics here for your viewing pleasure all the same.

And just so you know...we saved some fireworks for the future, so if you're ever craving some quality explosions or innocent sparkler twirling, we're you're go-to people.


Some of the big hits of the night, the Flying Betsy, and Mango Madness, or something rad like that.















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