Xavier's First Fireworks Display
Hello to everyone.
With the Fourth of July rapidly upon us, Rebecca and I wondered how to spend the weekend and how to celebrate the Fourth. I wanted to take in a fireworks display; I've wanted to do it the last couple of years, but we could not arrange it or find some place close. Our municipality is rather curmudgeonly about such things, so nowhere in our city.
The nearby speedway sometimes has them, but this year they were not advertising. Then, we heard that the city of Littleton has a patriotic heart and does a yearly festival. The park was just a few miles from us. They had bands and foods and krafts and bouncy houses—and most importunely: fireworks!
Because we came upon this knowledge late in the game, we drove down around 8:00 PM. The park was packed with a few thousand people. Not a problem, we had already planned to sit across the street in the mall parking lot.
Well, so did several hundred other people have the same idea. And the thousands in park had thought to park in the mall parking lot.
The night was cool after a day of heavy, short-lived rain showers. Dark, heavy clouds pushed over the mountains the closer to the fireworks show time. We brought with us a beach tent, one big enough to keep the three of us dry from any downpour. Though it was drizzling most of the night, it was not the rain we had to take concern with.
Instead of the rain and threatening skies, it was the lawn sprinklers. They're timing could not have been better planned! Starting thirty minutes before the show, like dominoes falling the zones came on—ten minutes each zone, then it shut down and the next zone charged. People scattered from their well-guarded positions into the relative dry of the large parking lot.
After we surrendered our spot to the sprinklers and after that zone finished, we put our tent back down. The grass was wet, but the tent has a floor. From inside, we watched the fireworks. Before the show began, Xavier asked frequently, "Where are the fireworks, Daddy? Mama, were are the fireworks?" Fireworks was his new word of the day. He may have been expecting something akin to the poppers he shared with his cousins a week prior at the family reunion.
At first, Xavier did not know what to think of the blooms bursting in the sky before him, but he warmed up to them quickly. Not afraid of the booms (we were a good quarter mile away from the launch point), Xavier watched intently. He would squeal happily, or point and say "Look, Mama, fireworks!" or "Fireworks, Daddy, fireworks!"
As we packed up the tent, walked across the parking lot to our car and the car ride home, Xavier asked repeated to see more fireworks. "More fireworks, Daddy! More fireworks." I guess the show made an impression.