Fourth of July FUN

For July 4th, we had only Joni for most of the day. Logan, Carson and Monte were in Wyoming spending some quality grandparent/cousin time with Grandma and Grandpa, Shandyn, Trevon, Jaidyn and McKinlee! We met them in Franklin later in the afternoon for the Sharp family reunion. That night we went into town and saw the fireworks and concluded the evening by going out to a friends and setting off fireworks at their house. Throughout the evening, Carson acquired some firecrackers from a friend. The boys have been watching an old western with Tom Selleck, where they break a friend out of jail with dynamite. Well, as you can imagine, when you combine four little boys (yes, I do say four, that includes the "little" boy who is over 30) with firecrackers, an old shoebox and figurines from their farm toy collection, this is what you get:

1. Makeshift jail with play guys

2. The "Set up" Making sure the bars in the jailhouse door are there and ready for the "Dynamite" to be thrown in.

3. Everybody ready to run when she blows? (Even the dorky little kids with the knee high socks (dark church socks, nonetheless) on with shorts and tennis shoes? Keep in mind that Carson thought you had to take each one of the firecrackers off of the little string that they come on, hence making the fuse shorter than normal! And then . . .

4. After the explosion, Oh wait! It wasn't quite a BIG ENOUGH explosion, because as you will remember, there was only a single stick of "dynamite". SO now we put in multiple sticks of "dynamite". You will see only a small char mark from the first attempt!5

5. Inspecting the damage. Did it make a big enough hole to break out the captives? Ooops, I must have forgotten to get a shot of the final blow. Oh well, they had a ton of fun experimenting to find out what happens and a great lesson never to mess around with firecrackers without "adult supervision"! For those of you who are wondering if it worked, it did blow the box up a little. I don't think it was the effect they were hoping for, but it will work until the next brilliant idea!