Life at a "Swell's" pace

We spent most of our DAY and our night blowing up fireworks and watching other people blow up fireworks. It was a all around fun day. Here's a few of the things we did that night......

The little neighbor girl came over, before we left to to see the Star Spangled Celebration Fireworks, to watch some of the fireworks at our house. She and Skylar play together from time to time because they are the same age.

The Chinese Lantern was sort of a disappointment. It lit and sprayed sparks, but the lantern got hung on itself and wouldn't open. :( It was a pretty lantern too, but clearly a bummer.

We lit off a few of our own fireworks before heading out to the big show at Cheadle Lake. The same location where the Strawberry Festival is held.

I think our show was a lot more fun, but the bangs and booms of the firework show the town puts on is a lot of fun and very colorful!

Skylar sat on top of the sun roof of the car so he could get a better view of the fireworks show.

When we came back, we shot off a few more and made a night of it with sparklers.

And another one of Skylar's homemade fireworks. :)

My up-cycled soup cans made into luminaries.

We had a great DAY and an even better NIGHT on the 4th. Hope yours was just as festive and fun!

See more photos of this night HERE!

The 4th of July here in Oregon either brings one of two things, rain or heat, and this year we got the heat! It made for a nice time outside though. The sun on your back and a cool wind blowing through. We did our normal yearly routine, bought the fireworks and had fun lighting off the small items during the day. The town has a "Star Spangled Celebration" at the same location as the Strawberry Festival just without the rides. The vendors are always there and food made by the fire department and other groups, but we always head out to the other side of the lake and watch from there. Mainly to avoid the crowds of people that gather to watch the fireworks show the city puts on.

We let Skylar pick out a few random fireworks this year. This is actually the first year he knew what some of the words meant and knew which ones go BOOM and which ones go SNOOZE, Ha!

Our firework goodies!

Smoke Bombs are always a hit at our house. We all like the pretty colors and they are fun for Sky to light and they don't go BOOM in his ears when he helps light them!

Baz wore his festive 4th of July t-shirt too! :)

(He didn't care for the fireworks though)

The Chinese Dragon was sort of a neat little, small firework. It sparked and rolled around for about 5 minutes. It even blew sparks out of its mouth.

Skylar even made his own firework to light off during the day. It was so cute how he took a toilet paper roll and stuffed it with paper and even wrote on it, "Skylar's Firework Company."