Oh the fun of the 4th...

So July 4th is my birthday and in order to celebrate I threw a party...my family came for a visit and we had a lot of fun. My birthday weekend did not get off to a great start when I was in an accident in the HEB parking lot. Nothing major, just a case of two people trying to leave their parking spots at the same time! I was faulted for it and was not in the best of moods about it.
My oldest sister Carolyn and her family arrived on late Friday night so we got to have a great visit with them since they were staying 2 nights. The next morning Mike was watering the yard and Ava decided to play in the sprinkler in her PJs. When Claire woke up the cousins enjoyed splashing around together. After hanging out all day we started to get ready for the party that afternoon. We got all of the food together and started putting it out.
After the grill was done, and bellys were full, we got set for fireworks. Mike was so nice, he went and bought what he called, "A show of my (meaning me) own." There were 48 morters in this one pack! Lance, Mike and Anna put on the show for us in the culdesac. Ava came out for a bit and when she heard one go off she said, "uh oh" and decided to go back inside. After they went through all of the fireworks, yes all of them, we headed back inside for birthday cake. When we finished it my sister Anna came inside and started talking about a field being on fire. This field is at the end of my street! Someone from another street was popping fireworks and one caught it on fire. Instead of putting out the small blaze, at the time, they ran! So we grabbed our cameras and cell phones and I called the fire department as we went to check it out. The wind did not help it at all and it started spreading fast. At one point it engulfed a tree! Luckily several people from the neighborhood had called and we joined the many onlookers who were awaiting the fire trucks. We applauded as they arrived and began to put the blaze out. We ended up with trucks from three stations: Tomball, Rosehill and Klein...
All in all it was a great birthday with lots of fun festivies and one "grand finale." Everyone had a great time and I enjoyed getting to see all of my family! Haven't had a birthday with all of them in a long time...
Here are a few pics from our day: