3rd/4th of July

This is my favorite holiday. I love the summer weather, parades, cookouts and most of all the fireworks. I include the 3rd of July as part of the holiday because here in Milwaukee, WI we are given the opportunity to start the celebration of our country a day early with the spectacular US Bank Fireworks. Heading down to Milwaukee's beautiful lakefront for this grand display has been a family tradition for years. It started with my mom, dad and sister and has expanded to as many as 40 plus people. The past couple years it has been my responsibility to get the spot. You can show up at the last hour and hope to get some grass but thats not how I do it. I stated a couple years ago by going down around Noon, then 10 am, last year we marked off our spot the night before and came down at 8 am to add our chairs, tables etc. We noticed people were camping so this year my husband and I decided to camp in Veterans Park. Yes, thats right, camp in a park located in downtown Milwaukee. What's even funnier is that we live a half mile away from the park. We got down to the park about 4:30 pm on the 2nd. Set up our tent, marked off the spot and lit the grill. We had a great time and walked around and I got some great pictures of the fireworks all ready to go. We couldn't believe how many people made camping in the park a tradition. We got prime spots, right behind the fence that blocks off the spectators and the fireworks.
The next morning we ate breakfast, I ran home to feed the cat and grabbed some more food and water. We set up our volleyball nets and played volleyball with some friends that came down to join us. We watched the park fill up and also watched about three storms blow over the lake. Whew.
We packed up volleyball and more family and friends joined us. But at about 8:30 p.m. the sky turned black and it got very still...... then there was this ball of pink lightening that filled the sky, um, where those the fireworks? Nope, but like I said, God decided to start his show early. We were smart enough to keep our tent there so we started grabbing everyones bags, blankets and other items that needed to stay dry and threw them in the tent. We got out tarps and umbrellas and hoped for the best. We were not leaving. Everyone figured it would storm for about 30 minutes and it would take everyone that long just to get to their cars. It rained, the wind blew, it thundered and we had more pink lightening. About 45 minutes later it slowed down and the fireworks started. And it was worth it. We still had some rain and beautiful lightening but the fireworks were amazing and the show was about an hour long.
We all laughed at how soaked we were and how scared we were of the crazy lightening but we also said that the fireworks of 2007 will always be remembered because of it all. Unfortunately because of the rain I was unable to get pictures of the fireworks but I do have some before shots.