The Fourth - Lakewood Style!

We actually had a pretty good 4th of July this year, although Bryan was bummed that we weren't at the Ranch and made this known throughout the day. But despite that, we were busy and had a fun day with the family.

Every summer the tall ships come into the Thea Foss Waterway for Tall Ships Tacoma - and it is so cool. You can go look at the boats and wander through the "villlages" - which are just vendor stands, but hello! Vendor food is so good! But lucky me won four tickets from the radio station to actually go on the boats and tour them. Bryan and I took Rix and Bryce (who were free thank goodness!) and my dad and Uncle Frank came too. It was so cool to see the big boats - two of them were featured in the Pirates of the Caribbean II movie and one is an accurate restoration of the Nina, which, for those who are uneducated :), was one of the boats Colombus sailed. It was so tiny! I can't believe people sailed across the Atlantic in it. Rix and Bryce saw lots of "pirates" and were allowed to become pirates themselves - eye patch and all! They loved going on the boats and seeing where the crew slept, turning the wheel, and, on one boat, playing with the cannons! It was a really fun and interesting start to our day.

Rix "driving" the boat. This one is owned by the Canadian Navy and is the fastest of the ships there at the Festival.

Bryce "driving" another boat - the wheel is twice his size.

Rix, Bryce, me, my dad, and Uncle Frank - we are looking down into the crew quarters.

Rix, Bryce and Bryan with a scary pirate. There was another pirate chained in a cage that was hanging. I told Rix that was what happened when the pirate didn't listen to his mommy. I think he believed me.

This year we went to Gravelly Lake for fireworks. The Murray family always puts on their own show, and it is so way better than the city-run shows. It lasts a lot longer and the best part is that since we are sitting on their deck overlooking the lake we get a great view. And since they set off the fireworks from their beach below the deck it is really loud and exciting. My dad has these Bose earphones that muffle noise, so we had the boys wear them so it wasn't so loud. There was great food and I was introduced to coconut macaroons - so good!!! (Why is everything always about food for me???) They had these really cool fireworks that landed on the lake and then exploded. It was really neat looking. And right at the end of their finale one of the fireworks misfired and the explosion was so powerful the whole house shook (it's a huge house) and we all bounced out of our seats. Thankfully everyone was okay but it was crazy.

Bryce actually loved the fireworks. When we first got there, he had tears coming down his face although he wasn't crying. We think he was scared. He sat on Bryan's lap for the first half, but seemed to really enjoy it. He would say things like "Whoa!" and "Cool!"

Rix really liked the fireworks. I thought he was going to explode with excitement when we were walking to the fireworks place. Every time a firework would explode he yelled "Score!" which is a mystery to me, but he thought it was so fun. He also loved the unlimited Sprite available to him. We had to cut him off about halfway through the show.