The 4th of July- in Virginia

I forgot one thing.  When we first got here the fourth of July was only about a week away.  I wanted to do something fun because we always do.  It's one of my FAVORITE holidays.  So our Bishop and his wife invited us to a place called Dogwood Dell.  We were actually considering not going but honestly had no other plans and wanted to get to know the Bishop and his wife so we told them we'd go.  OH MY!  I was NOT disappointed!  It was hands down the best 4th of July EVER!  We met them at his (the Bishops) office and followed them over.  We parked and they had free buses busing everyone in (which my kids LOVED).  They love riding on buses.  Once we got there, got off the bus, hauled all of our things over with us, we plopped down to people watch.  (I should add that we had to bring folding chairs, snacks, Ethan and the stroller came too!  ;-)   Anyway, we had 6 folding chairs so we were pretty packed down.  We get to the place we're going and it's an arena type setting only it goes down to a stage that looks like this:

This picture is of the orchestra playing.  but you get the idea.  I wish I had taken more pictures but the batteries were done.  Anyway, we people watched the man in front of us wearing nothing but a pair of small cotton shorts and a bad comeover going the wrong way walk up and down the aisle-way and laughed every time.  Watched the person next to us love on her ugly guy friend and then looked away when she took her top off to put on her bakini top.  It was.............well funny!  There were ALL kinds of people there.  We had to get there early, like hours early in order to get seats.  There were vendors of all kinds and we ignored them.  The show starts with this orchestra playing different selections to show off  different parts of the group.  They are really pretty good.  It was nice.  Then they do an intermission and the director comes out in a patriotic uniform and they have a sing-a-long to all these different patriotic songs.  After that they played each branch of the military's songs.  They have whoever served in that branch of the military at any time stand as they play the song.  Then they play the 1812 overture.  While they play that at random points in the piece cannons go off or fireworks go off or the bells chime.  At the end you have all of them going all at once.  They have what's called the Richmond Howitzers.  They are cannons and they are loud.  They were next to the stadium and we could see the smoke coming from them.  It looked like this:

Then when that was over then the real fireworks started!!!  I've never experienced fireworks like THAT before!  It was AMAZING!  so many and so many going off at the same time with the cannons and all that.  It was actually a bit overwhelming.  I don't need to tell you at this point that my kids were in HEAVEN!  Ethan watched with plugged ears but kept asking for more.  I plugged my ears too but loved every second!  The finale' was something else too.  They had roughly 3-4 going off at the same time but back-to-back-to-back!  It was INSANE!  We will definitely be going back again next year with the Blasers (pronounced Blaw-zers).  It was so much fun!!  Plus Natalie, Alyssa, Conner and Ethan made new friends that night!!  Yeaaa for new friends!  If anyone ever wants to come out our way to visit, the fourth of July is a GREAT time to do it!!!