Backyard Blessings: Happy 4th of July Day 6

I don't usually work on my blog until after all the kids are in bed, but with fireworks tonight, it's going to be a late night.

I'm enforcing a 9:30 bedtime for Vladik, and so far as he hasn't given me any grief about it. He's usually up, dressed and downstairs by 8; which, of course is long past the time Rick and I eat breakfast, but he doesn't seem to mind.

We drove up to Phantom Fireworks in West Salem to get a few small things. I nearly had to sign my life away to get them, but buy them we did.
Speaking of fireworks...what happened to the roadside fireworks stand where you parked your car on the side of the road, with barely enough room to get out safely. Where you stood dripping with sweat in the blisteringly hot sun making up your mind. Figuring out, to the penny, how you could get the most bang for your buck (pun intended)... all the while wondering how it was safe that the guy working the fireworks stand was smoking a cigarette. (Or maybe they just do/did it that way in Texas.)
There used to be one (maybe 2) between Maypearl and Venus... LOL I wonder if they're still there.

So anyway, we got the little white things you throw on the ground and they go "POP"... (my kids call them "poppers.") Smoke bombs, and the ones where you pull the string and the confetti flies out. We also got a package deal that had some of the ones you light. Vladik gave me a bit of a hard time when I told him he couldn't light them. (Evidently, the body language of complaining is universal, too.) But he relented quickly when I stood my ground.

We set off a few before lunch, and then the rest a couple hours later. They were all to excited to wait.

We had a good English lesson today, reviewing what he already "knows," and going over some table manners. (I say "good" because we had minimal interruptions) We worked on: "please pass the....", "thank you", and how to respond to the question "Would you like more?" We're still working on the names for the table setting... plate, bowl, fork, knife, spoon, napkin, cup/glass. It don't feel like he's retaining much... maybe with the exception of colors.
I was trying to remember if I took Spanish when I was a freshman in High School. I would have been 13- almost 14 then... about Vladik's age. But I don't think I did... I think I was a sophomore. (LOL I can still hear in my head the way the one secretary pronounced it-- "soph-uh-more.") Ahhh... but I digress.

Can't get much more "American" than that...
red, white, blue and baseball.

OH! I almost forgot. We had chicken nuggets, french fries, and an ENTIRE cantaloupe for lunch. My kids have a Sweet Vidalia Onion sauce they dip their nuggets in... Vladik liked it. I dip my chicken nuggets in BBQ sauce. (For the uninitiated, I make a
K I L L E R BBQ sauce.. it was my Nana's recipe.) Anyway, there is only 1 person I have ever known who did not like the "Oakley" BBQ sauce-- my brother-in-law. (Yes, Grant, I'm talking about YOU!) Vladik is #2.
To be honest, I'm not surprised. It's a tangy, robust sauce full of smoke, sweetness with a little kick at the end. It's A LOT more flavor that what he's used to. Oh well.. more for the rest of us, I guess.