Ever since Ron and I moved back to Washington, we have always celebrated the 4th of July at Lake Sammamish with the exception of the few times that we have been on vacation (Caribbean cruise, Disneyland, Japan, and Florida). Since I grew up always being at the lake on the 4th, I decided years ago that I wanted my children to have the same wonderful experience as long as it is possible before my family sells the property. As a result, I intentionally scheduled our departure to Priest Lake for July 5th this year so that we could enjoy this annual tradition before we left. However, a few weeks ago, I learned that my parents and my brother, Chris, and his family, were both going to be out of town. Since my two cousins who live in the area are no longer regulars at the lake for this holiday, it was probably going to end up being just my brother, Eric, and his small family in addition to ours. Since being on the lake is so much fun on the 4th (since you can watch the fireworks going off all over the place), I will still planning on going even though our group was going to be significantly smaller this year. However, after talking it over with Eric a few days ago, and weighing the pros and cons, we decided together that we would take a year off and celebrate at home. Since this meant that I would have one more day to pack for our trip to Priest Lake, I was easily persuaded as I will still totally exhausted and worn out from camping with the bad head cold that I had come down with the week before.
So, we changed our plans last minute and decided to attend a picnic up the hill at one of our neighbor's houses and then set off fireworks in front of our house with our good friends who live next door. Although we didn't end up knowing many of the people at the picnic dinner (since it turned out to be more close friends and family of of the hosts than a neighborhood get together), we had the best time coming back to our house and lighting off fireworks in front of our driveway with Poppy and Daisy and their mom and dad. We were outside for a good 1.5 hours blowing off our fireworks while our neighborhood went CRAZY all around us! It seriously sounded like we were in the middle of a warzone or something. Since Emmett has zero recollection of the 4th of July from last year since he was only one year old, it was so much fun watching him react to all of the fireworks. After getting over his initial fear of them, he happily sat in Ron's or my lap and just cheered the group on as we continued to set off all of our fireworks! And, one of the highlights of the evening came at the end when we only had to make a ten second walk back to our house instead of driving almost an hour ride home from the lake when we finally finished at 10:30!
The Hartland fam all lined up in our chairs at the end of our driveway.
Siblings ready to go!
Lia, Ella, Logan, Daisy, and Poppy holding up their sparklers.
Logan and Daisy dueling it out with their sparklers while the rest of the girls twirled theirs around in the air.
Daddy helping Ella light a firework.
Emmy cuddling with big sister.
We all laughed as our neighbor, Kyle, came out of his garage with his blow torch to use as a lighter. Here he is helping Logan set off one of his fireworks.
Logan lighting some ground boom flowers.
One of the many fountains we shot off that night.
Another pretty fountain going off as the evening got dark.
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