We Had an Awesome Evening for the Fourth! We even got paid to enjoy it!

My wife and I took our kids to the First Annual Pflugerville Pfireworks Festival, which was held yesterday evening at Lake Pflugerville.  The weather was absolutely perfect, and it cooled off a lot after the sun went down, with a nice breeze as well.

Normally, it would take us about 7 minutes to get there, but with the crowd and parking, it took us about 30 minutes from the time we left the house to the point that we were seated (we brought our own chairs). 

There were buses provided from Hendrickson High School, but we chose to scope out the parking situation before committing to the bus.  I am glad that we did, after we ran into a friend who complained about the bus.  Also, I think we might have had a hard time getting all five of our portable chairs on board.

We were the last car allowed to park in the closest lot, which turned out to be a huge blessing, because we were parked near the back entrance, and able to leave quickly after the show ended. 

The kids enjoyed the real juice popsicles that were for sale, and I loved the sausage wraps.  All of the food was very inexpensive.  I think the wraps were $2/each, and the popsicles were a dollar a piece.

A few days ago, my wife had purchased a canister of 100 glow sticks at a local craft store for the kids to enjoy.  They came with connectors, so you could string them together and make a necklace, or one giant, multicolored stick.  One child was so entranced with them that he kept wandering over to see.  I told my wife that if his mom asked about them, to sell her one for a dollar (hey, times are tight). 

I am glad that I told her this, because we ended up selling about 30 of them to a number of "customers".  Had I known that they were so popular, I would have arrived earlier and actively tried to sell them.  As it was, we just sat there and collected money. 

In the end, even taking into account our parking fee, food, gas, and the cost of the glowsticks themselves, we ended up turning a small profit, plus we have a lot of glowsticks left over for the kids to enjoy.  They were very excited about the sales, and it proved to be a fun entrepreneurial lesson.

As for the fireworks themselves, I was highly impressed.  I have probably seen 30 or more fireworks displays in person, and this one was the best that I could remember.  It went on longer than I would have anticipated, and they clearly didn't spare any expense to make the inaugural festival something to remember. 

As I alluded to above, after the show we were able to make it out of there quite fast, and we were home at a reasonable hour.  Overall, I can't wait for next year's Pfestival! 

Next time, I am buying TWO containers of glow sticks. 

Thanks for reading!