The 4th of July celebration continued into the actual holiday today when we packed up our leftover fireworks and headed to James’ and Jules’ house.

(Greeted by Anjelia and her latest bug friend)

The girls were in full summer mode, swimming and clammoring to light more fireworks. We filled the neighborhood multiple times with rolling clouds of colored smoke.

You have to watch yourself around the D clan, they sometimes can get a little cheeky.

We also created small fires with glow worms.

Tori and Jessica had a more artistic bent and created Smilin’ Joe

whose smilin’ days were all too brief

as he lived life hard, fast, and too close to the flame.

Art of all kinds was in abundance as the girls traced our outlines on the side walk and Lydia offered up this masterpiece.

The paratroopers I described and pictured in yesterday’s post were present in abundance as well.

(This is no where close to our total air patrol)

As they were the night before they were a big hit with the kids

and the trajectory and eventual landing of the explosive projectiles were the focus of the adults. We mostly hit yards and the street and a few rooftops. You have to remember that these clay-filled tubes would shoot up to 100 feet away or more. At one point I lit one less than 20 feet from my wife’s car and directly across from it. I shot it off and the casing shot directly down like a missle and put a good sized dent in the hood of my wife’s car. Luckily it wasn’t the nice new red Eclipse parked next to it owned by someone not of our party. These are the most fun, child friendly fireworks that we lit that are potentially the most dangerous.

As night fell James, joined by one of his employees, got busy and started lighting off the big stuff.

Once again the fireworks setting on my camera was fun to play with.

We sat back and relaxed and enjoyed a good show. Hope everyone had an entertaining 4th of July with family and friends. Thanks James and Julie, we had a great time.