Holiday Fun

What's more American than baseball, the 4th of July and Uncle Sam?

I am! I am! I am!

 (Remember that song?)

Here we are just before we left for the 4th of July parade on Friday.  Tiffany and Abigail arrived just in time to go with us!

We love our little local parade.  It's 'small town' and quirky but we kind of like getting string cheese, and lots of frozen otter pops thrown at us.  One thing I don't love about it is that it starts at NOON. Hello! Don't they know it's hot at 12:00 p.m. on the 4th of July?!

The kids ready with their candy bags in hand.  They all briefed Jameson on what would be happening that day, "Candy is going to fall from the sky" they told him.  He walked around for awhile saying, "candy, falling, sky". It has all the makings of a great day.

 Good thing I had my umbrella, it got pretty hot this year.  Of course, it's all relative. Tif and Abigail were quite pleased that it wasn't very bad at all.

Adam in his logo wear.  Fortunately he had an Academy Mtg shirt in red and an Academy hat in white.

 

Jameson cheesing it up on the way home.

 

Our 4th of July afternoon was spent watching the World Cup game between Brazil and Colombia. Brazil won 2-1.  Even though we were cheering for different teams it was a fun game.  I'm glad Brazil won, but 2 of their stars won't be able to play the semi-final game so I doubt they will win the next one.

 

We went up the local canyon for a dinner picnic that evening with my parents and Tif and Abigail.  It was nice to be in nature on such a lovely night.

 

 

We've been to the canyon twice in one week after not going for over 4 years. Wow. Look at us being all nature-ee all of the sudden!

That night it was fireworks, fireworks, fireworks.  Our neighborhood pooled all of their fireworks together and we had quite the show just in the neighborhood!  Of course, from my parent's deck you can see all of the fireworks in the valley, too.  Without any fire restrictions this year there were a lot more fireworks than usual.

The next day our friends Josh and Carrie invited us to go boating with them at Bear Lake.  We brought a cooler of food and decided to make a day of it.

The kids loved the beach.

 Getting ready to take the boat out.

Jameson NOT loving the boat.

Beautiful.

Korinne's favorite spot on the boat.

Britton and Jenna really loved the tubes.

Even after 1 1/2 hours Jameson still did not like the boat.  He wouldn't let Adam get in the water, he wanted him to be right by him the entire time.

Korinne finally consented to go on the tube with Cara, but only if it went slow and didn't turn a lot.

Josh and Carrie and kids.  Carrie did most of the driving since Josh gets a little crazy when he tries to drive.

After 2 hours Jameson was FINALLY ok enough to wave at the girls on the tube. That was as good as it got for him.  Boating is not on his list of favorite things to do. When some of the kids said they were ok to go to the beach he perked right up and started saying, "Beach! Beach!" Just knowing it was an option made him a little happier.  He didn't cry while on the boat, he just sat there and looked miserable.  Poor guy.  I hope we didn't scar him for life.

Back at the beach the boys played Frisbee.

Jameson loved the beach and playing in the water with Dad.

The older kids went out on the boat one more time while I packed up the gear and then we headed home.  We couldn't leave Bear Lake without getting raspberry shakes, of course.  Jameson must have been super duper tired because he fell asleep in the middle of eating his shake.

Don't worry, I finished it for him. :-)  I'm a nice Mom like that.

Thanks to Josh and Carrie for a great day at the lake!  Our sunscreen skills need some improvement, however, as we all had small sunburn patches that didn't get covered for one reason or another.  I already had a major tan line on my legs from my biking shorts, but my swimming shorts were a few inches above my biking tan line so I had a stripe of white on my legs that I didn't get enough sunscreen on.  The result was  'Neapolitan legs'. It's white where my swimming shorts were, red where the new skin burned and then brown where my biking shorts normally end. Three distinct lines with 3 different colors. Adam laughed and laughed when I showed it to him and I must admit it does look pretty funny.

Happy 4th of July to you all!