Fireworks go off with a Bang!

Tonight was the annual Waitakere Fireworks display at the Trusts Stadium. It almost didn't happen and was originally postponed, but fortunately it was un-postponed!

It's too expensive for us to pay to go in and watch the fireworks, but we're lucky our church is right across the road, so we can just watch them from there.

We showed up at about 8pm after dinner. We were originally tossing up between going out for dinner to celebrate Hamish's birthday (which is tomorrow), or just to eat in and celebrate it another time. We ended up staying home for dinner.

It was only once the stunt planes flew noisily over our house in formation that we started realising we should really get a move on!

As we drove to church, there were quite a few people sitting on the banks opposite the stadium ready to watch the fireworks for free. There must be a lot of cheap people like us in West Auckland!

When we got to church, the other fellowship was already there playing games. There were a few people from my own fellowship who had already shown up and joined in with them.

They were all sitting in a circle playing this game called Do You Love Your Neighbour? If you say 'yes', everyone has to swap seats, and the last person standing is stuck in the middle. If you say 'no', then only the two people beside you have to swap seats and you have to try swap seats with them without being the last person standing. Sound confusing? It was for me the first few times!

We were about to play this other game which required us to get into several teams. We were then given a few Chinese characters. Each team member would pick one character and call it out right at the same time, and the opposing team would have to guess what Chinese characters had been said and then use them to make a sentence or phrase.

We didn't get too far before the fireworks were about to start and we all rushed outside!

The fireworks started off slow and small, but they started to get bigger and bigger. Once again, car alarms were set off, and despite our car being parked at the far end of the car park, I had the beeper to turn it off every once in a while!

I'll let the photos do the talking though.

(http://youtu.be/h78JJwExQHo)

Calum vs Concrete

Yesterday I spent probably the longest time I've ever spent at church. We had church service in the morning, and because the Waitakere fireworks display was taking place across the road at the Trusts Stadium later that evening, a few of us just stayed behind at church to have a BBQ in the evening and then watch the fireworks after.

As most people left, Hamish and I stayed behind while our mum went out shopping with some others. Soon it was just me and this girl Jessica playing with my iPod until she had to go as well and I had to help someone out with a survey.

Soon it was time to get the BBQ set up and the food cooking! We had some sausages, meat and salad for dinner. Now this is where things started getting interesting...while we were eating, I jokingly challenged Joylynn (the minister's daughter) to eat a piece of meat in under 30 seconds, which...she failed!

As the day got darker, more people started arriving to have something to eat or just to see the fireworks. Because we had already eaten, we weren't doing much and so I light-heartedly challenged Joylynn to a sprint race in the car park. I thought this would be an easy way to beat someone, especially a 13 year old girl! It'd be easy, no sweat!

She accepted the challenge, and we lined up at one end of the car park. Hamish shouted

'GO!'

and we were off...although not for long for me though! I started to lean too far forward and lost my balance, ending up sliding on the concrete! I quickly got up to try catch up to Joylynn but she had already won. When I walked back to church, Aonghas looked at me in horror and when I got to the bathroom, I could see why..

 I had grazes to my face, arm, hands and legs! I had no idea what I was going to do! When I came out of the bathroom, fortunately Nadine, a pharmacist and Emily, another lady at church helped bandage me up with what they could find in the First Aid cabinet. They put antiseptic and saline on my wounds and then covered me up. I'm someone who can't stop laughing when in pain, so I was trying not to laugh!

I ended up watching the fireworks from outside the church foyer with Jireh, Joylynn's sister, who was also slightly injured from the indoor soccer game he had just returned from.

It was funny and a little embarrassing because people would come up to me and ask what happened, and I'd tell them that I had a little fall! I also had some kids who asked me what happened to my face!

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCpeXheXZWc)

Anyway, the fireworks eventually started, which is what we were there for! The fireworks were quite big and loud, but I'm not too sure if there was as much as last year? I can say that the fireworks were powerful enough to set off one car's alarm ten times though!

So it was an interesting way to end the fireworks season. Hopefully my injuries and my face will clear up by the Completion Ceremony without any scars left behind! 

Backyard Fireworks

Our old neighbour Phillip and his fiancée Lee came up from Palmerston North to visit tonight. Usually we don't bother tidying our house because Phillip is used to seeing it in a mess, but because Lee was coming, we put in extra effort to tidy it up...or the lounge at least!

When I got home from my friend's BBQ, they were already at our house, so I just joined in their conversation before we all decided to go outside and set off some fireworks!

Phillip got out this large tube he nicknamed 'the bazooka'. When we first saw that, we first thought it would be finally mean massive fireworks, but then we discovered it was just a container for 12 smaller shots! That's OK though, as we set two or three off at the same time to double the fun!

All the bits and pieces from the fireworks were falling onto the neighbours' roofs, so I was hoping they wouldn't come out and complain!

Once we had set off all our fireworks, we went out to the front to light some smoke bomb things! It's been a long, long time since we last played with those! When we were younger those and sparklers would be the only things our parents would buy for Guy Fawkes Day!

Phillip will be back in a few weeks' time so we'll get to catch up more with him.