4th of july 2008

You know this is my favorite holiday- what a great day!

I got up early & made pancakes & waffles. My sister brought me the most delicious recipe for orange pancakes- oh my they are so good. Great for the fourth, especially with strawberry freezer jam- I'll put the recipe on blogger mom's cook later- you'll love it.

We headed down for the parade on main street.
This year since I got up early... things weren't quite as hectic as usual. Typically it's crazy getting everyone/everything down to the parade route. We did forget our candy bags... no biggy. You see most entries in the parade throw candy or something even better (t-shirts, etc) to the kids along the parade route. The kids love it.
Even max loves a good parade.
F-16's fly over followed by a refueler jet. That marks the start of the parade. It was really strange but great weather - a little overcast. I don't remember a year when the sun wasn't beating down.

The peanut was a little squirmy- but he did really great.
Brian's good friends Cory & Ryan, also know around here as corn chip & rye bread- were in the parade. Cory is in the yellow shirt, rye just to the right in orange- they are in a local production of Footloose right now. Cory leaves for his mission soon- 3 weeks! He is going to Guatemala, Spanish speaking of course. We will miss seeing him around. Having cory around is just like having a little bit of brian here.Trent loves to catch & pick up candy- but won't eat it.

After the parade we took all of our stuff home & headed to the carnival in the park.

Here's chloe & brit. They had some pizza & chloe bought a chocolate covered frozen banana. I haven't had one of those for years. One summer we made them when I was a kid at my aunt sabra's house in downtown Seattle. Great memory.

I didn't document this part of the day well. It was so muggy- unusual for Utah. It really wiped me out. The little kids had fun in the blow up bounce houses & we just walked around. Chloe's cousin won two frogs- very exciting! We headed over to the quilt show & voted for our favorites to win people's choice. I can't believe I didn't take a picture!?

Brett's parents apparently loved him a whole lot when he was a kid because they bought him a little dirt bike when he was 14. They brought it down for our boys last fall & here are Jack & clyde trying to teach marcus how to ride it. It's a great thing when trent is having a bad day. One trip around the block & he's a new man. It's a stress on a mom though- let me tell you. Jack is so cute on it. He's so tall & the little red helmet from the 80's- cute.

We BBQ'd- also no photos- then I crashed on the couch for an undisclosed amount of time. I was so tired- my sister's cleaned the kitchen- I think... someone did. It was nice to wake up to everything put away & cleaned up. I really didn't mean to fall asleep especially in the family room but I was OUT.

Ruthie left & headed back home with here family but we kept the party going. We watched the kids play wii bowling & golf & just relaxed, by now it was so dang hot outside.

Later we went & bought a few more fireworks to go with the one we already had & I found these snakes! I LOVed these when I was a kid!! I haven't seen them for years. It was fun to show them to trent & chloe. Hailey said they look like dog doo coming out of the sidewalk?

Party pooper.

We got together with our fabulous neighbors across the street & shot off our own fireworks. I must have bought 200 sparklers- but the kids were all too scared of them?? We might try them again tonight.

We have lots of fun memories of watching fireworks with these guys.

Like the time they were shooting off- less than legal ones- and the cops drove around the corner... all of the sudden they were gone. We sat in our driveway dumbfounded- the cops immediately went to jack & his friends wondering if they were the ones with the fireworks.

It was so funny.

The night ended with a bang. Several actually. Jack & Seth planted 6 Pop It's under my bathroom toilet seat....

I of course screamed bloody murder after sitting on it to- you know- to go to the bathroom!

Brett ran up stairs to see if I was okay- I ran down stairs to beat the living daylights out of jack who was laughing so hysterically with Seth & Marcus I thought they were gonna be sick.

Big jerks nearly gave me a heart attack-

any how after that the blew up my metal garbage can from the garage with their altered fireworks.... yes Brett taught them long ago how to get a big boom out of the normal ones???? He made them promise they were done for the night & we were off to bed-

great day