My dh and I messed up this year. There is a town not too far from us that hold an annual fireworks' display in conjunction with the symphony and other businesses at this huge park. Well, for whatever reason, we thought it was going to be held ON the 4th. Instead, we found out, around 9pm, that it was being held on the 3rd. WHOOPS! We missed it.

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Prayer should be your first response.
Not your last resort.

That's what happened us twice this year.
The one at the high school we missed because it was Saturday. We considered going to the beach and it was on Tuesday! Weird.
Just have it on the day, people. It's a national holiday.

Anna, lol! We took our ds's to see an airshow when they were about 7. All of these awesome airplanes!! And they remember??? The ride on the shuttle bus. It wasn't yellow, but it was a bus and that's was their dream: To ride on a "real" bus! lol!
We disappointed them by walking back to our car when it was over. It wasn't as far as we thought, so it didn't make sence to stand in line 30 minutes for a bus when it was only a 1/2 mile walk back to the car.

Oh, Little One LIVES to ride in busses! She so wants to go to far-away-school just so she can ride that bus every day! She's convinced that when she's "old enough" I'll let her. Tho she does say that she likes airplanes even better : )

My Goddaughter was also homeschooled (she's graduated now) and wanted a schoolbus well into her teens.

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If only I could get my bus riding memories into your dds head. In high school I rode the bus for over an hour each morning. We were at the beginning of the route, so we were like the 3rd picked up and rode forever. Thankfully we were one of the first off though. I can see where it might seem fun or exciting - for a few rides.

Yeah, me too. 40 minutes each way, with a lot of upleasant companions.

But, for a preschooler - it looks very glamorous!

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We give it out in the city park where they are holding the town's 4th of July festivities. It is a small town (601 people according to the sign), and they have hundreds of folks in their park on the 4th of July (this year they got the governor, a U.S. congressman, and several other elected officials to be in their parade and lie, er, I mean "speak" in their park during their festivities. Attendance was down (they canceled fireworks over fire concerns and the temps were well over 100), but we still gave away over 1400 bottles of ice cold water through the course of the day. (I was out there all day and had to take yesterday as a day off to recover from my holiday).

Heat really takes it out of you. I am thankful for people who can/do work out in this kind of heat regularly. I could have when I was younger but not any more.

Well, that is a blessing to many people! I remember once when we were coming out of a race and had already drank all of the water we brought with us... it was 4th of July coincidentally!
They have people there giving out ice cold drinks and we were very glad to get them! We offered to pay, lol! THey said no it was a service to the community.

As for the bus rides.. my dc are SO over it now. After using a school bus for a missions trip last year and it only would go 40 mph for an 8 hour drive into the mountians (It took MUCH longer of course!!) they never want to see a school bus again, much less ride in one, lol!!

We had folks asking us how much it was and where our donation jar was and all such things and we told them we weren't accepting anything for it. My personal opinion on it is that this is like David's statement in 2 Samuel 24:24
"No, but I will surely buy it from you for a price; nor will I offer burnt offerings to the LORD my God with that which costs me nothing."
We do these things because we are offering our service to God, and He doesn't want sacrifices that aren't really sacrifices.