Birthdays, Fireworks, Summer!

N&M celebrated their 12th(!) birthday on the first. They came over and had the morning with me, opening their presents (Nintendo DS's, crimson for N and black for M), then had a sleep-over party with their friends at HQ.

S and I spent 6 hrs at Birch Bay Waterslides, which was a lot of fun. S was unstoppable, always in the water and on the slides, but I got drained by the hot sun. She was great, getting over her fear of the slides quickly and was soon going on her own. And neither of us got sunburned :)

The 4th was fun - we set off 30 dollars worth of fireworks (and decided to spend at least twice that much next year). The kids were great and very good about making sure that no fireworks were left smoldering, running around with water bottles to douse fireworks after they'd gone off. Here's what we bought:

Sparklers x2
Lightning Flash x2
Cracking Crazy Ground Hog x2
Ground Bloom Flower x2
Space Flyer
Jack In the Box
Purple Rain x2
Air Calvary (this one shot out a little army dude who floated back down on a parachute!)
100 Shot Magical Barrage
American Heartland (my favorite)

And now it's summer, and usually sunny! I bought myself a Redline 925 for my birthday, a sweet single speed, all steel ride that I've really been enjoying.