Guy Fawkes

We have lovely British friends who got us tickets to a bonfire in a communal garden so that we could celebrate Guy Fawkes like the locals.  Guy Fawkes tried to blow up parliament unsuccessfully, and to commemorate his failure, we have bonfires and fireworks on November 5 every year.

First, a nice lady gave Tommy two sparklers.  They were fun!  (I was quite worried about him swinging it around, but the British parents all let their kids be totally nuts with them, so I calmed down.)

 See the HUGE bonfire? There was a fence that kept the people quite far away from it, thank goodness.  We mostly had no idea where Tommy was, but at the beginning, I'd shown him where to meet us if he was lost, so we didn't worry too much.  It's a very secure garden, so we knew he couldn't get out, and they kept announcing lost kids over the loud speaker, so I figured if things got too bad, we'd hear about it.

 Before the fireworks, we convinced Tommy to come stand by us.  Here he is on Eli's shoulders, next to our friends Rory (waving) and Simon.

 Fireworks.  They went on for 20 minutes and Lulu was terrified.  I have never in my life wished for fireworks to be over quite like I was wishing for these to be over.  It really hadn't occurred to either of us that she would be so scared of them...