July 4th 2011

The Fourth of July was a good day, though the weather was very uncooperative most of the day, in one form or another. It was sunny in the morning, then started to cloud over, and we had threatening storms, then massive rain, lightning, gusty wind, hail, etc.

There were MORE storms threatening to our West late afternoon, more beyond that first threat one, which was supposed to be really bad in the first place. All in all, it aimed right at our county, then just stalled, scrunched up, everything just stayed, and never entered our area.

So no more rain. Just clouds, high clouds. Fireworks Friendly.

• We had a bunch of junk from an assortment Phantom Fireworks gave us. That’s something I want to avoid next time, or else just mess with that stuff mostly another time, really it was a waste of time, things that do this or that but nothing much, no whistle or bang of the flying things. Yuck.

• We buy Magic Crystals every year now (for a few years running, I guess) — they are awesome! Screaming, spinning, flying, sparkly things.
• We like shooting Mortars too. We are totally sick of crappy shells though. The “Cherry Bomb Artillery Shells” kit (12-shots) we got at Phantom had the effect pictures on the side of the box. Yeah, right, not how most of them shot off. All big but nothing special.

• The “Red White Blue Aerial Show” was a great mortar kit (12-shots). It had no pictures on the box, but was promised to be Red, White & Blue. It was good, some were OK, most were better than that.

We got some other stuff earlier than our “big purchase” and one thing we’d gotten then was WolfPack mortar kit. A smaller mortar kit, we’ve done it before. I wanted to get another, (Black Cat) that was there in the same price range, but the guy in the store belittled it … “same effect in different colors” when the WolfPack gave you multiple effects.

I wasn’t ready to quibble, so just left the subject alone and we got the WolfPack. I knew inherently I was wrong, and will not go there again. Next time I will trust myself and just get the Black Cat shells.

• Speaking of Black Cat, they make my favorite firecrackers. I got 2 bricks.

• We had also gotten War Birds with a coupon & gas receipt that day. Free. It was one of the best new ones we’ve seen. 7-shots, really good shots.

• We had two 500gm cakes that we’d never done before: God of Fire, and Fortress of Fire.

God of Fire was really, really good. Fortress of Fire was good. God of Fire wins me over though as a “I’d surely do that one again” item.

• We had a new thing (for us) in that we got two 3″ Racks of 500gm 9-shot finales. Gold Brocade, and Red, White and Blue.

The way I had them going on the 4th, it didn’t work out, so I didn’t really see either of them. (Really sucks, big time!)

• We used Phantom Crackling Missile Bases with the finale (love those!)
• We also used Saturn Battery 100-shot, and Sea Sparrow Missiles with the 500gm Cakes.

• A new little box we got was Red, White and BOOM! – 2 of them. Quite nice little guys. I’ll get them every year now (have wanted to get them before, but hubby never let me.)
• We had a Broken Hearts box, that was nice, as usual. It’s usually add to our order as a bonus every year.

• We also had prepacked tubes of Red White Blue with whistle tail, and Comet Cluster Shell (that one is my favorite!)

Anyhow, I made a plan of when we’d do what, and overall that worked well. I need to fine-tune what we do next time, and also get more support for wiring things together.

I’m pulling for more stuff for my birthday. I’d love to have something for every one’s birthday, and holidays like New Years, maybe Christmas too, Memorial Day.

I love silver glittery lovely fireworks for New Years. One year, some time ago, we had a pack of fountains from Costco, they are large fountains and filled the night with lovely sparkly stuff, but we’ve not seen that pack ever since. We do go to another place to get stuff now. It’s not something we look for in Costco anymore. I don’t look for packs of fountains either now. A few good ones are worth it, but the best is shot high to fill the sky with light and color and glitz and whhomp, bang, boom!