What goes up, Must come Down!

That would be the theme of this year's party for August 1st - Swiss National Day. Not that we are Swiss, but we all enjoyed having the day off and it's a good excuse for a party, Right?

And fireworks - Right?! Certainly not the kind of fireworks you find in California.

To start this little tale, I should mention that we had some fellow American Expat's over for last year's Aug. 1st. We have a view of Lake Zurich in it's entirety and therefore, the fireworks from all around the lake can be seen. A great vantage point.

And last year, I bought a few small fountains and sparklers for fun as they had firework stands outside the grocery stores, etc... But I didn't buy anything big as I figured it wasn't "our" holiday and some of the items looked a little crazy to me.

Well, we found out last year that what I bought were meager offerings to the firework gods and I was instructed to "do better" this year. Because the neighbors let some mortars fly and the kids from the farm behind us were letting loose commercial grade rockets.

So, I bought some 'rockety' looking things this year, some larger fountains and these tubey things that turned out to be 5 shot Roman candles - not to mention the 'Fun Box' and 'ThunderKings' the friends brought.

As you can see below, the rockets came with PVC pipe and unbeknownst to me (I can't read German THAT good), the rockets don't leave the ground without the wooden stake - the wooden stake goes up with the rocket!

Thus - what goes up, must come down. And I about had a HEART ATTACK! We had about 4 smouldering sticks land in various places and as my mom's saying "maybe we should go under the patio", one lands about 2 1/2 ft from Kendra.

I'm thinking "what if one lands on a neighbor", "what if..."?????? AAAhhhhh!

So the guys finally move the PVC pipe to the other side of the yard aimed slightly at the fields uphill. (because if it hit's a sheep or cow - can we say B'bque?)

My nerves may have been shot BUT the guys had a Blast! They loved the rockets and all the big exploding stuff. The bigger the better.

And short of injuring themselves, it didn't stop raining until 7:30pm and we were able to set everything off on top of the roof in standing water! Except for the rockets which left 2 scorched spots in the yard.

So - here you have crazy Americans setting off fireworks in Switzerland!
Bart with one of the 'early' rockets.
This year's fountains were much larger than last year's which only went about 6 feet high.
Playing with the sparklers. And yes, my kids have on the Red, White AND Blue!
The mid-air display from one of our rockets.

So the American neighbor's set off the obnoxious fireworks this year. Still didn't beat the farm kids though - Hmmm wonder where they found their rockets?