When Yanthor and Anya said they were going to go get some fireworks, I imagined it would be a few little zingers that we would go out in the yard for a couple of minutes and set off, much like what many of the neighbors were doing.

When they arrived back from the movie, Humblik was with them, and Yanthor said it wouldn't be advisable to do it in the yard, instead opting for Holmes Lake Park.

When we arrived at the lake, and I took at look at the size of the box containing the fireworks they had obtained, I began to understand why. Both the quantity and variety was something approaching absurd.

"..and this can be our semi-grand finale, and then this one is the final grand finale." Pointing to the ever-larger packages.

Well, we made quite a bunch of flashing, banging, and whirring.

When we were roughly 80% finished (having not yet reached the big finale), a cop pulled up and told us the park was closed, and that we needed to clean up the mess and leave immediately.

We picked up the junk, and Yanthor and Anya debated about whether to just save the rest for later, or attempt to find another location for our big finale (Humblik and I remaining mostly neutral on the subject).

Eventually, everyone agreed on a proposal to go out in the middle of some abandoned road in a soon-to-be-developed area (Anya had an idea where) for the big finish.

We packed it up and went to the mostly-vacant spot in east Lincoln. There, we quickly got setup and lighted a few more shells, plus the big huge chain-reacting thing that made many a bang and lit up the sky with color.

After that, I saw not one, but two cop cars drive by out on the main road near us. Though they hadn't yet approached our little gathering, we packed it up and got out of there before they got around to us.

It was a fun thing to do. In the past, my fireworks experiences have consisted almost exclusively of going to large public gatherings where professionals put on the show. Setting and lighting them ourselves definitely adds an element of fun that's absent when one is simply being a spectator.