Happy July 4th on the 6th!

We are home! We got home yesterday, early. We landed early, and then we were home by 2:30 in the afternoon! I had time to unpack a little, and the boys and I went to get Maya. She was soooo happy to see us. She is such a spazz. All she's done since we brought her home, is sleep. She is one tired dog. She must have really enjoyed her vacation with my friend and her two dogs. She spent about 3 weeks with the other two dogs-remember we had the dogs while my friend went on vacation? She's pooped. Actually, the four of us are pretty darn tired too.

Here's how we spent the 4th of July...

We took a cruise on the Hudson River. We saw the skyline of New York and the Statue of Liberty.

I love my new camera with its 14x zoom!

Later, my friend came into the city (from Jersey) to watch fireworks with us. Look at this sunset! Beautiful. We were in a crowd of thousands and thousands of people for Macy's fireworks show. TONS of people. It was a little intimidating. We were on 34th Street and we walked down but the police wouldn't let anyone cross to near the river-that was already really crowded. So we were kind of stuck where we were and then people behind us just kept coming and it was super crowded. We decided to move back some. We found a group of people who had put down lawn chairs so we settled in front of them. It was better, but still crowded.

The fireworks were spectacular though! The biggest production in the states. 6 barges of fireworks! The viewing area was from around 29th Street up to 51st Street. CRAZY!

Can you see all of the cameras out? You can get a sense of the crowd in my other pictures, which you will find at the end of this post.

Ahhhh! The crowd was so excited about the fireworks. It was amazing how in-sync they were, for 6 barges!!

These are my favorite! They are so big. The show was about 25 minutes in length. When it ended, people simply turned around and walked peacefully out of the area. It took quite awhile to get out of the crowd, but everyone was patient, and moved along. The crowds were immense. I wonder how long it took my friend to Subway her way back to Jersey?

The Empire State Building all lit up for the 4th of July. It closed early for a private event. I bet the view of the fireworks was spectacular, from there!

To see the rest of my pictures, click HERE (cruise) and HERE (fireworks).