UN-HAPPY 4th of JULY

For the fourth of July we went to Lunga park to watch fireworks. They have tons of cool things for the kiddos to do, those big inflatable slides, a water maze, a rock wall, not to mention the playground that they have. They also have a live band and all sorts of food. We went last year and had a blast.

We got there around 4 and Ian saw one of his co-workers so we chatted with him for a bit while we were waiting for our neighbors to get there. Once they arrived we found a nice spot on the hill laid out our blankets and watched the kids play on the playground. Lindsay and I went for a little walk and let the guy's watch the kids. Once we got back to the blankets Ian took Keegan for a walk and the rest of us ate.

As we were sitting there we noticed off to the left of us that it was getting pretty dark and then we saw some lightening and a little bit later heard some thunder. We just sat there watching it hoping it would go around us....no such luck. We looked over the lake and about 100 yards from us you could see the rain and then before we knew it, it was POURING down on us. We threw our stuff in the bag (Ian was back with Keegan) grabbed the blankets and took off toward our cars. Triston was holding on to his sandwich for dear life.

Now being that it is July and it is pretty hot out that rain was FREEZING. We decided that we weren't going to make it to the car so we took shelter under one of the tents. It just so happens that this was the military police tent and standing about 3 feet from us was the biggest German Shepard I've ever seen. Ian got to talking to the dogs handler and found out that the dog is not very friendly and will bite people just for being close to him (note to self: don't do anything stupid on this base). Needless to say I started moving my kids away from the dog and Ian stayed and talked to the guy. He found out that the dog weighed 126 lbs (see I told you he was big) and that they usually work for about ten years. Ian asked what happens to the dogs once they retire and the handler said that they use to euthanize them but now they will let the handlers have first choice to adopt them. If the handler doesn't want to adopt them they will be open for adoption to the military and then to the general public. I thought that was pretty interesting (see you can learn stuff by reading my blog).

The rain didn't seem to be getting any lighter and we were all wet and cold so Ian went and got the car (he can be such a gentleman). We got the kids into the car turned the heat on and went home. Triston was very concerned that daddy couldn't see anything, but most of all he was worried that he wasn't going to get anything else to eat. He was sitting in his car seat clutching onto his very soggy sandwich. We got home, got into dry pj's, ate supper and watched the thunderstorm instead of watching fireworks. The kids were pretty bummed but I recorded the macy's 4th of July show and they watched it this morning.

I'm just glad that the power didn't go out ;-)