Our Fabulous 4th

Our 4th of July only got better as the day went on. Tony took Grayson to see Ice Age 3 at the movie theater while Max took his morning nap and I rested. Then in the afternoon I made homemade potato salad and chilled balsamic asparagus and Tony prepped the grill for our family cook-out. The last time we used it was before we moved to Belgium, so we were happy that it still worked 3 years later.

After Max went to bed we grilled our burgers and turkey burgers and had a small family picnic on our front lawn.

Grayson did not want to eat the potato salad, but once he tried it he loved it (how can you beat my Aunt Pat's recipe with lots of bacon in it!).

Afterward Grayson was dying to start shooting off fireworks (actually, he'd been bugging us all day), but we made him wait until dark for the big ones.

We did let him start with these little ones.

The tanks blew each other up, and the turtles.

It was great fun for my little pyromaniac.

We also had those little black snake things which Grayson said looked like poopies (not an unusual thing for for him to say these days).

Later, as it became dusk, our neighbors came down and little Grace brought Grayson a dessert . . .

. . . and a funny hat. She said that she was the princess and Grayson was her prince.

And Tony smoked a cigar. Not my cup of tea, but he likes them on special occasions.

Finally it was time to get down to business. Our neighbor's brother arrived in Atlanta via Alabama - where the big fireworks are sold.

They lit up the sky and the kids yelped with excitement . . .

. . . and held their ears.

There were even ones that shot up high in the sky, but I couldn't manage to get a picture of those ones.

And of course we had lots of sparklers.

Grayson loved them until one skipped back and hurt him a little. That was it for sparklers for this year for him.

AND THEN . . .

AN UNEXPECTED SURPRISE . . .

The Druid Hills Country Club, which is just a few blocks away, started shooting off their fireworks and low and behold, we could see them right over our house.

They were amazing, and such a fun and unexpected surprise.

It was the perfect end to our 4th of July.

And Max slept right through it all.