Holy Cow, Texas!

After a perfectly enjoyable evening, we came home just in time for the countdown--which in itself is a pretty funny story. We decided to watch the Downtown San Antonio one instead of Dick Clark's, since Dick was an hour ahead of us, and thus not live. After going on about how great the committee was that put the thing together, and how they went to extensive measures to make sure the clock was exactly on, we watched with excited as the elevator went up the Tower of the Americas. Only someone didn't know when to start the countdown, so this is what was said: "One...Oh...Happy New Year." It was hilarious! Maybe you just had to see it. But talk about taking all the drama out of the New Year's Moment!

So immediately after the New Year, we realized a big difference between Utah and Texas. In Utah, we would probably hear some small fireworks at a couple houses. In Texas, despite the fact that we do live within city limits, thus making it illegal, our entire neighborhood started lighting up firecrackers that are easily worthy of LaVell's Stadium of Fire. To get firecrackers of this magnitude in Utah would have taken some strategic planning and several hours in the car. Here, they were sold at the corner stand. I have no idea how much money these people spent, but it had to be a lot! We were starting to get worried for our house, as teens were irresponsibly lighting these things and they started exploding under cars, in the middle of people, and on another house! And it went on forever. We probably would have gone to bed earlier, but we had to stay up just to make sure we didn't need to hose down some spark.

I know it sounds like I'm overly dramatic about this, but we were both just so awed at how many different firecracker parties there were, and how large they were! It was just crazy.