Fireworks Night Three - Lockport

Lockport always does July 3rd fireworks, so we headed there the next night. We brought our Minecraft swords with and we had a lot of interest in them since they weren't for sale at that show.

Non-Firework Night - Dinos at the Zoo

On our "off" day, we went to check out the new dinosaur exhibit at the zoo. We walked around the regular exhibits a bit first.

 We had an unusual double bear sighting; usually the bears are hard to find.

Later, we headed to the indoor part of the dino exhibit, where we hunted for fossils, played with puppets, and saw a komodo dragon.

Then it was time for the main attraction. I thought the kids would be more afraid of the life-size dinosaur robots, but they were not at all. They still thought they were pretty cool though.

We also collected all of the special edition wax dinosaurs that were available

Fireworks Night Two - Balloon Festival

For night two, we headed up to the Eyes to the Sky balloon festival. I had originally planned out five nights of fireworks, but accidentally went to this festival a day early, so we ended up having one day of no fireworks. It was okay because five nights of fireworks is a bit much. The kids really enjoyed night two (especially considering they weren't present for night one). We spent some time at the carnival playing games and won a red penguin, two trumpets, and a baton. Afterwards, we had dinner on a picnic blanket.

While eating, we watched with amazement as one balloon after the other emerged in the sky. The boys loved trying to be the first to guess what animal or object it was. Once they were all up, we went over to check them out. The best part was the balloon glow, when all the balloons would fire up at the same time.

As night approached, we headed back to the hill to watch the firework show. We brought a glow wand for Charlotte and the boys each earned glowing Minecraft swords.