or…. Spectacular, My A$$

or… I Missed Fireworks for THIS???

(I’m going to get the griping out of the way, so bear with me…)

We decided to try something new this fourth of July. (Thanks, Houston!) Usually we camp out on our front lawn and watch the fireworks and then go back in the house and tuck the kids into bed. This year, we decided to go to the Orchards for their free concert and Laser Spectacular. The Fab Four…a Beatles cover band…was playing. Robin and I went down early to set up our blankets and chairs to save a spot and then we did a little shopping. I found a really cute dress and (even better!) it was on sale! Score! Wade and Jon and all of the boys came just before show time so the boys could play in the water fountains there. They had a great time, and I got some great pics! When they were done playing, it was time for dinner. We ate our picnic dinner and listened to the opening band. Besides being a little warm, it was such a great evening! And then the Fab Four started to play. They were AWESOME! They looked like the Beatles. The sounded like the Beatles. The boys were dancing and clapping and we were all singing along. Dark came (and thankfully cooler temperatures) and it was almost time for the laser show. The MC let the crowd know that it would be about 10 minutes before the show started. The boys were excited, the grownups were too. 30 minutes later, we were all past the point of excitement and moving toward irritation. Finally, the lights went down and the show started. Um. Is this it? Really? I had all these intentions of taking photos of some cool laser tricks. It was not to be. This is what I got…

The laser show ended up being two laser machines set up on the stage sending lasers over the heads of the crowd. The music was canned and over processed. There was not even a whole National Anthem. Just a snippet of Whitney Houston recorded while singing it at some venue. I told Wade that it was sad that the 30 seconds they played of Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA didn’t even get me choked up. I always get teary eyed at that one. It was horrible. Just horrible. Benji was done. He kept saying he wanted to go home. 15 minutes of my life I will never get back. And I missed fireworks. That I am really sad about. On the way home, the boys got to look out the windows of the van and see some of the city firework displays. To top it all off, when we got close to our neighborhood, the traffic was horrible. Because the fireworks were launched from the rec center behind our neighborhood, they were diverting *all* of the traffic through it. What should have taken 15 minutes to get home, took 45. Tyler asked, “Next year, can we just stay home and watch fireworks in our front yard?” That is certainly what we will be doing.

So, we tried something new. Half of it was good and the other half…not so much. We learn from our experiences.

Now, on to the pics!

Boys in the fountains…

Benji meditating in the fountains…

Avery getting blasted in the face with the fountain…

More Benji…(I think Tyler was moving too fast for me to catch any good ones of him…)

Yep, this boy has my heart for sure…

Benji with our friend Jon, clapping and enjoying the band…

Tyler was chilling out…

Avery was rockin’ out… (Air Guitar!!!)

He gets pretty fancy with his air guitar…

The boys with their 3-D glasses on for the “spectacular”…