Fireworks in DC

The Fourth of July has become perhaps my favorite holiday. I like that it still means what it is supposed to; you can’t go to an independence day celebration without feeling at least a little bit patriotic. Plus I really like fireworks. They are so fun and spectacular and the chemistry is pretty cool too. It would be so much fun to be a firework developer (something to look into…graduate programs?) I was actually a little sad to leave Provo because I really liked the freedom festival where we could go to the hot-air balloon launch, walk the parade route backwards, and sit outside the stadium for the stadium of fire. Then I remembered, we are moving to the nation’s capital, they should be able to throw some awesome celebration. I’ve been pushing back Jack’s schedule so that he would be able to stay up late for fireworks and be able to adjust to Pacific time when we go to Seattle on Thursday. So after Jack got up from his second nap (at 7:15 pm) we headed out to the metro and into the city. We went to the Jefferson Memorial to watch the fireworks along side the Washington monument and across the tidal basin.

After waiting half an hour, the fireworks started. I was so looking forward to Jack enjoying the fireworks, but actually, he was quite scared. We thought he would be well prepared because we’ve had several thunderstorms (with some very loud thunder, it’s made me jump) and Jack has done great. Jack really likes Dr. Seuss’s Mr. Brown making thunder; he will find the page and go “boo, boo, boo!” and so we say “boom boom boom!” when it thunders and he likes it. No such luck with the fireworks though. He kept trying to run away from them, and managed to get free and went to the lap of a stranger (luckily he was wearing a BYU shirt so at least Jack knows who he can trust!). Jack settled down after a bit and started to watch, he even clapped. It was a really neat experience to celebrate in DC at my favorite memorial along with other people clapping and cheering to celebrate our country.

And then we had to make the exodus back to the metro with everyone else. We had heard horror stories about getting out of the city, and luckily it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. Getting into the metro station was the worst, we were crammed body to body with everyone trying to get down one escalator, but we were only in that crowd for about 10 minutes. We all made it home and were in bed before midnight, so we call the night a success. We will probably be staying more local for the rest of our stay in DC, but I needed to be in the city at least once just because we can.