As many of you know, the Fourth of July is a super fantastic celebration of America's independence from Brittain, and we party like it's 1776 each and every July 4th in an effort to remember the importance of the day. As I alluded to in the title of this blog post, what many of you may not know about July 4th, is that it also marks the one week countdown mark to my birthday. I like to think of the fireworks, BBQs, general exuberance, etc. as a precursor to my big day, not America's.
Anyway, enough about me. For the rest of this post, I will be writing under the assumption that July 4th is celebrated for America, and not for me--humble, I know.
We had great weather here yesterday, and we had to take advantage of it, so we went up to Chickamauga Battlefield, which is actually in GA, not TN, for a change! I will try not to be too redundant in this post, as I already included a few "did you know" facts in my previous entry from our Father's Day train ride to Chickamauga. I did learn that this was the first battlefield in the nation to be preserved--it was preserved 27 years before the National Park Service was even founded! It is interesting because there were so many casualties on both the North and the South's sides that only a few years after the battle, veterans came back and met (form both sides) to discuss a way to preserve and memorialize the battlegrounds. As a result, there are over 1500 monuments, plaques, and original cannons from the battle throughout the battlefield! We hiked for about 2 and a half hours and we couldn't believe how you could just be randomly walking on a dirt trail, and there would be granite monuments stuck back in the woods. They were EVERYWHERE. I just kept thinking, that for people like my mom and grandma, this would have been an excrutiating trip because they like to read every word of every plaque they pass by to make sure they don't miss a bit of knowledge. In fact, I don't think it's humanly possible to see every monument on the battlefield in a weekend. I don't know how big the battlefield is, but it's at least 4 miles north-south, and probably the same east-west. So, at any rate, we decided to hike/sprint for the first part of our morning through the battlefield, and then do the driving tour after we had thoroughly work Jacob out! Oh, also, I should add, for those of you considering a visit to the park, the visitor center is top notch--there is a museum, a theatre, and a collection of about 1,000 rifles from the 1600s through today! Anyway, it was a lot of fun--I kept wishing we had bikes to ride (lots of people rode bikes around the park)--maybe next time!
Once Jacob saw that I used the map to tell us where we were on our trails, he decided to take over as navigator. He told us which trail color we were on over and over again, as well as reminding us that the reason we needed the map was so that we didn't forget where to go--he literally told us that 24 times.
Us-if you look very very very carefully, you can see that I have a skinned knee. That is because I fell--yes, again--that backpack and I are not made for eachother evidently. I actually fell so much that my shoulder got scratched up too!!
Some more cannons--all of the cannons are in their original positions
These cannonball pyramids were like the ones (they were a bit taller) that marked where commanders fell in the battle.
Down a path and out into another opening with monuments!
We're all about some big guns
South Carolina soldiers monument
Jacob is there in the field, if you look carefully! Again, a HUGE expanse of land, and this area is NOTHING in caparison to the whole park!
Jacob in my sunglassesBut, don't think that was all the fun we had yesterday---we hadn't even made it to fireworks yet! Once we rested up and ate the mandatory cheesy bratwurst, we headed up to Chattanooga to watch the fireworks over the river downtown. It was really neat, very family friendly, which was great for us, because, as you know, we are a family who likes friendly places to go. Since we got there early (the fireworks didn't start until 10pm), we let Jacob play in the "rivers" (like he called them) around the outside of the aquarium. Then we headed over to claim our spot by the river. Jacob was great, especially for being wayyyyy tired from the busy day! He loved the fireworks--lots of people over on the other side of the river in the mountains were setting off some pretty decent fireworks for about 45 minutes before the real show started, so he got to get a sneak peek of the excitement to come, and boy did he love it!! I wish we could figure out how to get our videos on here, because we took a few videos of him cheering and going crazy, and they are hilarious! He was the ONLY one cheering for the fireworks up in the mountains, and he kept going, " YAYYYYYY!!! Mommy, Daddy said in 5 midits(minutes) there will be BUNCH of fireworks and they will go BOOM and I will be exciting (excited)!!" The only down side of the evening was it took us a little over an hour to get out of the parking deck:( While we were in the car stuck, going nowhere, Jacob had to go potty, of course, and while we had already changed him into his diaper and jammies(since we were hoping he would go to sleep on the way home!), he didn't want to go pee in his diaper because he just doesn't prefer it these days. So, with few options, we let him go pee pee in a bottle we had in the car! BAHHHHHHHAHAHAHAHA!!! And now, he just said that he needed to go potty in the bottle again. I thought I was being resourceful last night, but maybe it was one of the biggest parenting mistakes ever!!
Jacob displaying his 4th of July handiwork--I meant to post this project earlier in the week in case anyone got excited at the idea of homemade fireworks and wanted to do them at home! In case you want to know for next year, they're just pipe cleaners, which are cut in half, the tips are dipped in glue and then glitter, and then you wrap a pipe cleaner around the whole bunch and spread them out to make them look like a bursting firework! We added some beads to some of them as well for some extra pizzazz!
Us again
If only Jacob would take a nice picture with his mommy as well...
Jacob in the little "river". They go all around the outside of the aquarium, and even have smooth river rocks embedded in the concrete to make it feel like you are in a real river!