Fireworks

July 4th was not only a celebration of our country's independence for the Clopper household, but also Ryan's 22 month birthday - meaning it's only two more months until he is two years old! woooahhh... So far we had spent most of the weekend like we do most long weekends -- painting one of the rooms in our house (this time it's our master bath...and we're not quite done yet, so you'll have to wait for those pictures). We decided to take the morning off and do brunch with Megan, Laura, Jeff, Emily, MaryBeth, Rit, and Ollie. Ryan and Ollie were fast friends despite Ollie's very excited jumping upon introduction. The spread was delicious and it was really nice to see everyone again! When we got home, Ryan decided that his 25 minute nap on the car ride home would last him through the rest of the day so (sadly...or not) we weren't getting much painting done, so I whipped together some German potato salad and we headed to my parent's place for their annual fourth of July barbecue. After our delicious dinner, we watched the Capital Fourth on TV (despite the fact that it was gorgeous and we probably should have just gone downtown). Ryan loved that Sesame Street was celebrating their 40 year anniversary and got very excited about "BIG tweet tweet", Elmo, and friends. In fact, he talked about Elmo and tweet tweet most of the way home from Grandma and Grandpa's. We arrived home just after dark and while I was getting Ryan ready for bed, lots of our neighbors were setting off fireworks -- and they were the good ones! Ryan absolutely loved watching the "lights" and was constantly looking for more "booms". We spent more than half an hour just sitting at his window watching them all. Despite all the excitement, we knew Ryan was ready for bed when he shut his curtain and said "Bye bye booms".