Happy Birthday, America!

This Monday we celebrated the birth of our nation with some of our friends here from BYU.

We're all living in posh downtown apartments.  This apartment has a back porch which looks out over Lake Union.  And that was where one of the city's fireworks shows was going on.

We spent the early part of the afternoon eating BBQ chicken, watermelon and other 4th of July fare while steeling the minds of our children for the noise of the evening.

Everytime someone set off a bottle rocket or a roman candle nearby, we made a big deal about how great and fun it was--hoping the two toddlers would begin to associate the loud noise with something happy instead of scary. 

The firework show over the lake was really quite spectacular.  I was afraid after Chinese New Year last year (2 weeks of solid explosions literally right outside our windows) that I would be disappointed by any other fireworks exhibitions for the rest of my life.  I was wrong.  The New Year celebration was certainly more mind-blowing and in your face, but this was much more elegant.  I really enjoyed it, and we all had a really great time.

And this is what Cora had to say about the whole thing.

Happy Birthday, America!