New Years Eve 2011

People here in Katy love fireworks. I don't mean they like them. They LOVE them. Seriously. If I could think of a stronger word than love, I'd use it. Travis also LOVES fireworks. It's a match made in Heaven.....or Houston....or whatever. (I don't love them. In fact, they sorta kinda terrify me. Just a little. But when we were first married, I made Travis a deal - he could buy them and light them as long as they were legal. No driving across the border to buy the "good" fireworks. Legal. We were living in Utah at the time, and pretty much everything except sparklers were illegal, so I felt pretty comfortable with that deal. And then we moved to Texas....)

He was so excited for New Years Eve. We invited some friends over and had a fun time. The kids loved lighting the littler fireworks and they ohh'd and aaaw'd over the big ones. (And nothing caught on fire, so I was happy too.) It all lasted about half an hour, and then we cleaned up and went to bed.

I haven't ever gotten good pictures of fireworks, so I mostly just took pictures of people.

Here's Megan pretending to BE a firework.

Here's Kate, happy to be up an hour past bedtime.

Here's Jared, excited to help light fireworks (and then run like mad).

Here's Megan, writing her name with a sparkler.

Here is Megan and some of the Thomas boys. We're glad they came to celebrate with us!

We were done by about 8 pm, and had the kids in bed by 8:30. (Yes, we ARE super fun parents! How did you guess?) :D) At about 11:30 pm, Travis and our friend Paul went to another fireworks celebration. This one pulled out the serious fireworks. No namby-pamby sparklers for them.

While he was gone, the neighbors started THEIR fireworks show. It went on from 11:45 pm until about 1:45 am. My windows were literally rattling. Car alarms were going off up and down the street. It was SO loud. Jared slept right through it, but the noise woke Kate and Megan. Kate went back to sleep, but Megan stayed up and read until they were finished.