Fourth of July!

Yesterday we went up to Rockford to celebrate the Fourth of July. My family has a picnic every year, and Rockford actually has the biggest fireworks display in state! It's always a great show and we watch from a park really close to the river where the shoot them off so we're almost underneath them. We decided to take Gabe down to see them and we knew it would be past his bedtime, but figured he would be facinated once they started. We got to the park a little before 8, but the show didn't start until about 9:30. He was getting so tired waiting, not cranky tired, but just totally zoning out tired. Finally the show started, and he definitely was watching (not scared of the noise at all, which was good) but still so tired. They shoot the fireworks to music (lots of people in the park had boomboxes, etc. so you could hear the music) and after each song people would clap and Gabe would clap along, but was so tired and still just staring in a daze. Finally, he fell asleep right in the middle of the show and stayed sleeping all the way through the finale (super long and loud) and all the way to my parent's house and into his pack-n-play. I couldn't believe he fell asleep and stayed asleep with all of that noise! He was so pooped out. I felt kindof bad keeping him up late, but it was also a lot of fun. I really love going to the fireworks on the 4th and we didn't go last year because he was so little, so it was nice to go this year.