Independance Day

In Mac's two-year-old world, the Fourth of July is the greatest holiday ever created.

Better than birthdays, and better than Christmas.

Why?

Fireworks.

So this year, we really lived it up.

The Monday before, we had the Shaws come over for a little patriotic Family Home Evening.

Tim seemed mildly terrified, but all went smoothly.

Matt, one of Mac's friends.  "Matt and Mac" gets confusing, but it's worth it.  We love this kid.

Belen being held by the Great Mayor of La Habra himself!

Morning of, we hustled out to a giant park to have a massive breakfast with our stake.

Complete with ice cream.

It seems like everyone in our ward has enormous amounts of family throughout the stake, but our good friends the Hollands were, as we were, family-less.  So we held down our table well, and had a great and memorable conversation with a deaf guy who rocks at pool.

When Mark took Mac over to the play area and Mac later returned on his own, Taylor reported seeing Mark schmoozing some young, lovely lady.  Janae suggested that he could be drumming up clientele.  Made sense to me.

Turns out, we do have family here!  I forgot to snag a picture, but I'll get some soon.  Mark's cousin and her family are all here for a work assignment that should last through the summer.

I'm excited to stake our claim on somebody.  Especially for holidays like this one.

Moving on, we went home and lit a couple small and silent fireworks.

Mac's reactions were priceless.

Then Mark was off to sell Funnel Cakes with the Lion's Club at the high school's fireworks show. The kids both took great naps; I even had to wake Mac up.  When I sat next to him he mumbled in his sleep: "Fireworks, fireworks ..." Once he was coherent enough, I broke the news that we needed to head out to see the show and quickly stuffed them in the wagon.  Together we trudged up the hill to find Daddoo.

While Mark spooned jam onto fried deliciousness, Belen and I watched Mac absolutely man-handle about five different bounce houses.

Two hours later, someone finally took pity on Mark and allowed him a break.  Mac reported all his adventures and together we watched random fireworks pop all over the place while waiting for the big show to start on a corner of the Shaw's family spot.  (Thank you for letting us invade yet again!) 

Mac jumped all over the place searching the sky for the "big, huuuuge fireworks!"

And we tried to keep things out of Belen's mouth.

Finally the show started.  Mac squealed and laughed and kept jumping up to tell the kids around us, "Oh my gosh!  Did you see that?  Huuuuuge fireworks!  Wow!"

Still can't figure out night mode on this camera.

Belen nursed through the first few, and then just couldn't take not knowing what was going on any more and intently watched the entire show as I held her face close to mine.  Though she didn't seem quite as thrilled as Mac, she definitely did not look away.

But once they were over, she was out.

We hurried through our last tiny fireworks at home, which Mac felt were incredibly sub-par after what he had just witnessed.

So we said good night to the fireworks, talked persistently about how we needed to do some more soon, said "Happy birthday, America!", and hit the sack ourselves.