Fifth of July

FIREWORKS REWIND: I know, I know, the Fourth of July is over, but its memory lingers in our house.
Our Fourth festivities included a bit of campus decoration (hung the flag outside, strung up some star garland and applied some window clings, which Annabelle and CJ decided to apply backward, so passersby and those over on Queen Anne hill could enjoy them. The kids also each made a pan of red white and blue crispy rice treats.

Last night we crossed the Interbay valley and went to the east side of Queen Anne hill to view the fireworks being set off from a barge in Lake Union. Actually, we secured our fireworks show spot on the evening of July 3, when we went and parked our truck over on tony 5th Avenue at Boston, which is an optimal viewing spot.
At about 8 p.m. on the Fourth we headed to QA hill, parked in front of Rick's house, and walked about 5 blocks to the truck. There, we comfortably camped out for a couple of hours. (Many a passerby remarked on our ingenious spot saving technique!)
The kids played with a friend they made (Joey, from Nashville - cute kid, age 10 but CJ's size, with an amazing head of shoulder-length hair that naturally formed huge ringlets). The time passed quickly, and by the time 10 p.m. rolled around, probably 300 were packed in elbow to elbow in the intersection we'd staked out.
During the display, Annabelle asked, "How are fireworks made?"

Flash forward to July 5. ...

PYRO PROS: This morning, we all learned a lot more about how fireworks are made. For starters, we went on a (long) virtual factory tour of the Zambelli Fireworks Internationale in Western Pennsylvania. Their family has been in the fireworks biz since Antonio Zambelli ventured from Italy in 1893 to establish the Zambelli Fireworks Manufacturing Company in New Castle Pennsylvania. (The little black book he brought along with him containing secret family "recipes" is locked in a safe at the Zambelli HQ.)

Next, we watched a Discovery Science video about fireworks, mostly centering on "Thunder Over Louisville," which is held each spring at the Kentucky Derby Festival. It's a Zambelli production, launched with ten computers, eight barges and a waterfall of fire along a 3,200 foot bridge. The footage we saw online was a-freaking-mazing.

BEST FOR LAST: To round out the fireworks video viewing session, I pointed our browser to a "Mythbusters" episode. It was billed as "Mythbusters visit Zambelli Fireworks," so I thought we'd be seeing more factory/shell making type footage. Not quite!

Instead, the Mythbusters were just getting some explosives advice from the Zambelli folks in order to construct a hwacha - an ancient Korean weapon that shoots hundreds of arrows hundreds of feet at the same time.

The Mythbusters were trying to rocket 200 4.5-foot arrows 500 yards (wow!). The kids were very interested in the trial-and-error process of the Mythbusters as they experimented with different amounts of fire power and trajectories (ballistics and range). It was a highly entertaining experiment - the kids were bouncing up and down in their chairs when it came time for the final test. (The graphic at the right is a 1500s painting of a hwacha design.)

Of course after watching all this, the kids wanted to go blow stuff up. :) Fortunately, we had a couple of boxes of popits leftover from the Fourth. ...
TARGET PRACTICE: I thought we could kind of copy the Mythbusters' theme, by aiming our explosives at a target. So, I drew a bullseye in the alley. I told the kids the center was worth 50, the middle ring = 10 points and the outer ring = 5.
Once CJ knew the activity involved racking up points, he was all over it. :) Honestly, I had no idea CJ was so proficient at counting by 50s. He kept an accurate score in his head and by himself. His only little hiccough was when he scored another 50 points after reaching 950. I immediately wondered if he knew the next bump up would be 1,000. And, in a way he did - but he called it 10 hundred. A bit unorthodox, but correct - and interesting. :)

STRAWBERRY SEASON: We have been spending a LOT of time outside these past few days, which is a good thing, but along with good things sometimes come bad things. Sometimes bad things come in the form of scrapes. Annabelle's sporting a big one on her elbow and CJ acquired a fresh one on his knee tonight.

It's funny, CJ is rarely gets hurt and when he does, he's really bad at it. ;) He knows he's supposed to cry/be upset, but it doesn't come naturally to him, so, for instance, he might actually say (in a steady voice), "Boo hoo." Correct - and interesting. :)