Stadium of Fire BBQ at the Swans'

Aaron's aunt and uncle live right across the street from Lavell Edwards Stadium. Every year they have a huge BBQ for all their family and friends on the night of Stadium of Fire. It's awesome because you can still hear everything that goes on in the stadium, but you aren't confined to small, uncomfortable bleachers. An even bigger plus for us this year was that we could put Adelia to bed in their study and still enjoy the concert and fireworks on the back deck with the boys.

Adelia enjoyed eating her shoes on the car ride over, so she wasn't too hungry for the BBQ food. But the rest of us thoroughly enjoyed it. Especially the home made root beer and the dessert table.

After eating, Ryan and Melissa, and Kelly and Esther and Asher, and Aaron and our kids and I, set off some fireworks we'd brought with us. My boys especially loved the pop-its, as always. Lincoln was into sparklers this year too, but Ivan was pretty terrified of them. We did get a great shot of them both holding one though, but I think that was the first and last one that Ivan did the whole weekend.

Ivan didn't like the loud noises of the fireworks either. Every time one went off, he clung on to Melissa. I'm pretty sure that my kids are convinced that Ryan and Melissa are their second parents. Their cool, way more fun, second parents at that. I'm good with it. If I had aunts and uncles as cool as Ryan and Melissa, I'd try to adopt them as my second parents too. :)

This was the first year we let the boys stay up to watch the fireworks. They were very impressed. Every time one went off, Lincoln would shout, "That was a great shoot!" and then Ivan would echo, "Great shoot!" It was pretty funny.

The only part of the night that wasn't a lot of fun was trying to get home. :) The only draw back to Richard and Debby living so close to the stadium is trying to drive out of their neighborhood when all is said and done. It took us over an hour to get from their house to 9th East (the equivalent of about 2 blocks). Needless to say, we didn't get home until after 12:30am. The kids were tired and cranky, but I think they had a good time. so I was glad we went, and stayed for the whole thing.