4th of July in Vegas

I am a little late getting this down.  I really don't have any pictures, but I want to jot down a few things for posterity.  This is the first time we have been in the states and not in Provo for July 4th in 15 years.  But we were in Utah recently for the wedding and funeral and will be there again in a couple weeks, so we opted to stay home.  Our friend/neighbors had a few families over for swimming and a barbecue Saturday.  The kids had a blast.  After several hours in the sun we came home, showered and had some quiet time.  After a late dinner, Matt put the futon mattress and some big pillows in the back of the truck and we drove to a neighborhood just above Seastrand Park.  The City of North Las Vegas always has a firework show July 3rd.  There are food vendors and a live band and huge crowds at the park, but we opted to skip the crowds and listen to the band from the comfort of our cozy truck bed.   There were plenty of fun fireworks from the Indian Reservation all over the neighborhoods to watch while we waited for the main show to start.  It was a very decent display.  We were all Oooohs and Ahhhhs.  It was nice to sleep in the next morning with no guilt attached.  (Sunday means no 5 o'clock run!)

Church would have been a ghost town if we didn't have so many visitors.  I guess it almost evened out comparing the number of families missing with the number of visitors.  I do know that about 1/2 the faces in Relief Society were new.  I was conducting and it took extra long to introduce everyone.  But it was a nice Sunday.  That evening, we walked to the bike path a little before 9 and had a perfect view of the Aliante Station Fireworks.  Theirs were super.  It was really like a 10 minute long finale.  There were 3 levels/heights ahd sometimes hard to decide which to focus on.  Kudos to the firework choreographer.  The sky got so smokey that the hotel completely disappeared 1/2 way through the show.  The kids (especially Isaac and Makenna) were wondering if the fireworks were too harmful for the ecosystem and feeling personal guilt for all the crimes of humanity against nature.  Too much animal planet, eh?  But the smoke had all but cleared by the time we slowly strolled home, so now we can feel okay about looking forward to more fireworks in Utah on the 24th!  The night's fun wasn't over though.  For the next couple hours it sounded like we were in bomb zone as hundreds of rockets shot up from backyards all around.  We watched for at least an hour on the balcony before getting too tired.  They can't be compared to the professional shows, but they also can't be compared to the ones we used to pick up at Macey's each year.  The reservation must make a killing each June/July.