Erick was coerced into switching his first on-call shift to the 4th of July, so that meant we didn’t get to do the big celebration like I’d planned.  So instead, we celebrated Independence Day on the 3rd instead.  Fortunately, there were several places that had fireworks displays that night.  Erick’s family goes to Emerald Downs (a racetrack) every year for a picnic & fireworks so we joined them.  Joshua had so much fun playing with the cousins & we had fun visiting & hanging out.  There was a big slide, bounce house, face painting, henna tattoos, & lots more for the kids to do.  The Damishes even brought Bailey & Dawson’s little tent that the kids climbed into, & other relatives brought a wagon that they had fun sitting in.  We all had a lot of food & fun.  Then it finally got dark & the fireworks started.  Joshua sat on Kristyn’s lap for most of the time & had his hands over his ears & his eyes closed for the first 5 minutes.  Kristyn did a great job of comforting him & eventually he opened his eyes to see the fireworks.  Occasionally he’d shut them again but for the most part, he watched the rest of the show.  Eventually, Joshua got down & sat on the blanket.  Bailey was so excited when Joshua joined her in her tent.  The fireworks display was really amazing & lasted a long time.  Joshua was so excited by the end & was asking for more fireworks.  It didn’t even get over until after 10:30!  Then we packed up our things & walked to the car.  Big mistake in taking our time for this—the parking lot was jam-packed with cars trying to leave by the time we got to our car.  It took over an hour just to leave the area.  Cars would drive a few feet then they’d stop their engines since it was so bumper-to-bumper.  So we didn’t end up getting home until after midnight & then to bed until about 1am.  Not a good way for Erick to start his first 30-hour shift—on less than 4 hours of sleep!

Not brave enough to take Joshua out to the big festival in Tacoma on my own, we opted to stay home last night since we at least got to see fireworks on Friday.  I put Joshua to bed & turned on his sleeping music pretty loud to drown out potential fireworks booms but it didn’t work.  Even though there weren’t any displays right near our house, the loud noises woke him up.  I got him settled down & later noticed out the master bedroom window that I could see some fireworks over the trees.  Joshua woke up again & so I carried him into our room to watch what I thought would only be a few more minutes of fireworks.  But we watched for over 45 minutes—with me holding Joshua up for much of that time so he could get a better view.  I counted at least 6 separate displays, all from the comfort of our home.  And then we went to bed, unlike Erick, who is still at work.  Hopefully he didn’t get tons of new burn admits in the ED & was able to get a little shut-eye.  One shift (almost) down, about 99 more to go for the year…