I always thought that playing with fireworks was just fun and innocent, (I grew up lighting fireworks in the neighborhood streets), and all those warnings about starting fires were for dummies who lit a firework in a dry cornfield or something…well…fireworks are DANGEROUS and I learned that first hand this July 4th!
Let’s start out with a sweet, patriotic family picture before the chaos…
We were in College Station, at my parents Octaranch having some family fun!
water gun fight!
James trying to shoot my dad!
water gun rage!
having some of aunt Jessica’s birthday cake!
look at all the danger…
So all was fun and games at first…
sparkler fun from Asher
look how high!
Then my brother and James paused before lighting a 9 tubed firework. It had lots of “cautions” on it but they figured as long as they set it on a flat stone, it should be fine. Based on the previous pictures, you can tell that I was not with the rest of the family. As soon as the firework lit and blew out it’s first tube, it turned sideways and started blowing 8 more rockets of fire out in a clockwise direction. It shot one under our car, one at my sister’s car, (causing a dent), one right past me in which a small fire immediately started, one rocket across the street that started a larger fire, one at my sister-in-law’s leg that caused a 6 inch bruise and one at Rilyn’s boot! Chaos immediately ensued as this was the size of the fire:
sorry for the poor quality, but I was shaking pretty bad and screaming for someone to call 911. And that is my dad running into the fire with a bucket of water
The fire by me was pretty small, but still the size of an extra large pizza. My dad came running with a bucket of water, but tripped right in front of my fire and spilled it all, so I was forced to put it out with stepping on it (thank goodness I was wearing tennis shoes!) The kids were all in hysterics by this time screaming and crying and I just kept on taking pictures because that’s just what I do! 🙂
again, apologies for the poor quality, I was shaking too!
aunt Jessica and aunt Becca trying to comfort them
I’m pretty sure we scarred our kids for life on enjoying fireworks.
Thankfully, my dad had a very long hose ready in case of anything like this happening, and so with the help of 4 men together, they put the fire out. The fire was about 4 feet deep, 5 feet tall, and 4 feet wide. It could of been MUCH WORSE if the winds were any stronger, because the firework landed in a pretty dry area. My mom was just about to call 911 when my dad had it out. The whole incident took about 2 to 3 minutes, but it felt like eternity as I thought we were going to be the ones responsible for burning College Station down. Our adrenaline didn’t come down for hours after that and we couldn’t stop talking about how blessed we were.
Even after the fire, we lit a few more fireworks so as not to live in fear. Rilyn was the only one who would watch them though. All the other kids hid in the house. 🙂
We went to the George Bush library firework show after MUCH coercing the kids. I’ll save those pictures for another post though!
the paquettes 