Mesmerized
Good thing Susie was in town on the 4th of July. Otherwise I might’ve indulged my lazy tendencies and not taken us to see fireworks, which would’ve made Denise sad since she loves fireworks. And Sofia would miss out too. Hmm… maybe I wouldn’t have sat at home after all with all of that in play. Anyway, we went. Clinton has a fireworks show every 4th of July, so we avoided the $5 parking fee and traffic crush by parking just outside of the park and walked the rest of the way. It was a nice little hike, but we had a good time so it was worth it.
We adults enjoyed it, and Sofia thought it was terrific. She kept trying to creep up closer to catch the fireworks, so we were constantly pulling her back. Definitely need to make a point to go see fireworks every year. Oh, and buy sparklers and whatnot–forgot this year.
Sorry if you’re here expecting more photos of the actual fireworks. Fireworks photos are boring. Fireworks + context = interesting. And in fact, it was tons of fun taking photos of us with fireworks as a side show. It was basically pitch black when fireworks weren’t illuminating the sky so it was all manual focus, hand-held, slow shutter speeds to get some light streaking, and trying to time the shots to coincide with the brief bursts of light. The technical challenge was part of the fun. Give it a try next time! Fireworks-only photos all run together and are much of a sameness after a while, but you can get your own unique shots by focusing more on the people and environment than the fireworks themselves.
On a completely unrelated note, as we were walking home we were passed by a group of 3 young pre-/early-teen girls chattering as they typically do. We missed the context of this exchange, which might be why it was so funny:
Girl 1: “She doesn’t do that because it’s not lady-like.”
Girl2: “Well, we’re not ladies yet!”
Classic.