Someday we'll go see fireworks...

The last time I saw real 4th of July fireworks was five years ago.  We watched them from my office on the 16th floor overlooking downtown, and it was amazing.  Comfortable seat, no crowd, perfect view, and weatherproof.  Good thing that viewing was so awesome, because it's had to make do for the last five years.  For some reason, we never seem to be able to make the effort to go see them.  And I like fireworks, particularly on the 4th of July.  Sure, I used to hide in my parents car, tucked in a ball on the floor of the back seat, totally petrified of the booms, but aside from those loud, colorless boomers, I really do enjoy fireworks now. 

The apple apparently doesn't fall far from the tree, as Jacob is not a fan.  He's seen fireworks here and there, mostly at baseball games.  They never used to phase him, but over the last year or two he's developed some sort of random fear.  He's told us numerous times that we can't go to baseball games with fireworks.  However, as we learned from the pool debacle, sometimes all it takes is experiencing something anew and seeing that it's ok, in order to put the fear behind us.  So, while the fear wasn't the main driver of another non-fireworks 4th, it probably did contribute to our lack of motivation to go.

Instead we opted for a low-key day and a soccer game.  We had a very lazy morning and an easy lunch, then Jacob was off for his nap.  While he napped I replaced the fill valve on one of our toilets and fenced in my garden, effectively closing the salad bar to the small mammals of the neighborhood (I hope).  Craig took a dip in the pool until I requested his assistance with the garden task, and by the time that was done, Jacob woke up.  I was ready for a dip in the pool--it was 90 and felt even hotter--so Jacob came in with me.  After a quick swim, it was time to go in the house and get ready for dinner and the soccer game. 

We headed out to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, Carmine's, and then went to the game.  Well, Craig had the time of the game wrong, and it turned out it didn't start until an hour later, which meant we had a very long wait with not a lot to do.  Still, despite the fact that it was HOT, the weather was nice and there were plenty of soccer warm-ups for Jacob to watch.  We killed time and finally sat down to enjoy the game. 

Jacob was looking a little sleepy by the end of the first half, so we decided to call it a day.  The good news is that we'd get him home close to bedtime, but the bad news is that we had no shot of hitting any of the city fireworks displays--the main one, or the one at the baseball game down the road.  On the way out we did manage to get this picture...

What you don't see is that 10 seconds earlier Rex nearly ran over Jacob because Jacob ran right up to his legs and he couldn't see him.  Rex knows us and apologized later, but we know how it goes--mascot vision is limited--and we reminded Jacob to be a little more careful running up to mascots because they can't see very well.  Cute picture, though!

Jacob started to get tired on the way home and just nodded off, but then woke up when we arrived and didn't fall asleep until after 10:30.  Ugh.  We've been having trouble getting him up and out in the mornings, partly because we've been a little lax with bedtime (evening swims, mostly!) and partly because his new-found freedom with the safety knob off his door has led to a nightly walk to the bathroom about 5-10 minutes after we say goodnight.  Hopefully our upcoming time away will get him out of the habit.  Of course, hotel sleeping with Jacob is one of my least favorite things ever, so I doubt the sleep situation is going to improve over the next few days. 

On the bright side, we will have some fun family time in the next few days, so that will be awesome. The time away from work couldn't come at a better time, either.  More to report soon...