Fun on the 4th

Our 4th of July started out with an unsuccessful search for sparklers - who knew that most stores in Madison don't actually sell sparklers? Granted, we were somewhat limited in our search radius since our car was still not running so we were on our bikes, but still. The few people I asked suggested we head to a fireworks stand. For sparklers? Really?. Fortunately when we got home we saw our neighbors headed out and stopped to chat. Turns out they were on their way to Walmart and if any store is going to be selling sparklers, it's Walmart. So they offered to pick some up for us.

We decorated the bikes again this year (Shorewood - the little neighborhood that is actually a village right by our apartment has a bike decorating "booth" as part of the village 4th of July festivities) - though we missed the parade due to Zora's nap again this year.

But we did head back down in the afternoon and watched the water fights there. People in the village form teams and 2 teams face off with fire hoses, trying to move what looks like a small keg hanging from wire, across the other teams end. It's sort of a water push-o-war. It was pretty amusing to watch and with the wind we got cooled by a nice mist from all of the water coming from the fire hoses.

Enjoying our homemade blue popsicles - very festive, right?

Zora shows off her new blue face

And her swingy braids

We had watermelon and sparklers with our neighbors after dinner and then Ken, just home from work, took Owen and his friend Kieran to the fireworks.