It was a first! Alison sat through an entire fireworks display, only cried a couple of times and actually enjoyed large parts of it!!

Kevin's company picnic and awards ceremony was last night. It was fun. They had a moon walk and a huge bouncy slide set up for the kids, and both were a big hit. Clowns were on hand to paint faces and make balloon animals. Alison couldn't have the balloons, though she really, really wanted them, but she did get her face painted. She usually chooses to have a cat face, but last night she picked a mask. It turned out really well, and even inspired a couple of other mask requests. She spent a little time in the moon walk and got to go down the slide several times before we ate, and then she got to do them both again after dinner. Once she got her earmuffs on (we had brought them to wear for the fireworks) so that the really loud sound system didn't bother her as much, Alison sat nicely and listened to the awards presentations with. Figuring that he wasn't going to get a Continuous Improvement award, Kevin sent Alison and I off to the bathroom so we would have that taken care of before the fireworks. We came back to find him holding his grand prize plaque. We missed it!

Then it was time for the fireworks. I had parked close to the tent so we wouldn't have too far to go in case we needed to make a quick getaway. We pulled out the chairs and sat down just as the show began. Alison whined and carried on a little, but didn't beg to go home, as she has in the past. She didn't seem to like the ones that went up high and exploded into a lot of color. But she did like the low launched ones that were more noise and flashing than anything else. During one round of that she sat up and stared, shouting out to me "I love those!" Go figure! That was what I thought was going to upset her the most! She talked about the fireworks the whole way home, telling me how much she loved them. "I've never, ever seen fireworks like that before!!" Well, that's right....you've always been too afraid to stay and watch them before.

We are definitely getting our money's worth out of those big earmuffs! So far they've been to a parade, to the movies, and to the fireworks.