4th of July

We had a delightful morning of sleeping in and puttering before getting ready to start the entertainment portion of our day.

We met Lori at the theater to see Despicable Me2 (5 thumbs up!). I had bought our tickets a few days earlier so we had primo top row, center seats.

We attempted a sunny self-portrait after the show but only Randy's shadow made it in the shot, not Randy himself. It was far too hot and sunny to keep trying for a better picture. After the show we went home for an hour to regroup and cool down...it was beasty hot before meeting up for the night.

Randy drove my mom's car (I rode shot gun) while Robyn and Chase (the boyfriend) followed us.

We went to Goodwood for a tasty dinner.

Lori and I thought it was funny that they all ended up walking in a straight line.

Next up for the evening was braving the crowds in Provo at Stadium of Fire.

We feared our seats were going to be terrible because we got the cheapest ones available, but they ended up being great!

We were right in the middle!

Woohoo!!

It was funny to see so much red in the stands since BYU is usually all about blue, but we make exceptions for the 4th of July.

It was handy that our seats ended up being two rows of 4 rather than a long row of 8, it felt like we were actually all there together.

Kelly Clarkson was fantastic! She sounded so good live and has such a fun personality, she put on a great show!

The fireworks were great (of  course) though it's weird to be so close to them, they were super loud and forceful. The show ended close to 11:00pm and we had to shuffle our way out of there with 40,000 people so that wasn't great, but overall it was a very fun way to celebrate the 4th!

Festivities

Our 4th of July tradition for the last few years has been to get together as an extended family to go swimming (this is for the kids really) and then to go to Adam and Amy's house for dinner and fireworks. That was the plan for yesterday as well, but as we were driving to Salt Lake to join Adam and Amy and their girls it began  pouring rain. They were already at the pool, but we decided to head over to their house instead (I didn't want to pay $20 for us to get in only to be kicked out because of lightning).

Adam texted me their garage code so we let ourselves in and hung out for 2 hours until they came home (it never did lightning so they stayed at the pool). Robyn and Lori joined us there as well, so we flipped through their magazines and talked.

Lori and Whitney drew a 4th of July mural on the chalkboard wall in the kitchen.

Eventually Adam and Amy and the girls came home and joined us in the family to chat (not the girls, they were busy playing downstairs with Whitney).

 

We were very ready for dinner to get going.

Landon had me take some shots of him flying off the swings.

My parents arrived and we got the food ready.

My plate of goodness.

A close-up of my awesome burger and ranchified salad.

Lori made these all-American cupcakes for the kids.

We also had root-beer floats for dessert.

Landon spent a lot of time adding to the mural so this is what it ended up looking like.

It seemed like it took a very long time for it to get dark outside so the fireworks could begin. I mean, we'd been there since 2:00, so 10:00 took awhile to get there.

The kids did sparklers.

I think this blurred shot is kind of cool.

From their backyard we could see about 6 different fireworks shows going on in the valley (from a distance of course) and then one of the displays was close enough to feel like it was just for us. Good times.

**How was your 4th?

Do you do your own fireworks?

Do you enjoy root-beer floats?

What do you put on your burger?**

Comment Window Tidbit: We spent the day at the pool today and despite two different applications for SPF 50! my knees and forehead got burned!

Balloon Fest 2011

On Saturday morning we got up at 5:30 (definitely NOT my favorite time to wake up) to get presentable enough to continue our 4th of July tradition of going to the Balloon Festival in Provo. This year Lori went with us and Michelle and her kids did not (she had been at girl's camp all week and was wasted).

We usually go on the first day of the 3 day festival so as to avoid the crowds, but this time went on the 2nd day and definitely noticed a difference. It was much more crowded, but not tortuously so, still I think next year we'll go on day 1.

While Randy and Landon walked over to McDonald's to get breakfast for everyone, Lori, Whitney and I walked around near the balloons as they were filling up. It's rather surreal to be so close to these massive contraptions and to feel the heat of the flames even from a distance.

Of course we had to take a self-portrait.

There were several times when the balloons were straight over our heads, which caused a cute 3-year old boy nearby to exclaim "They're going to land on you!"

We always get hash browns and plain biscuits for breakfast and I do believe this is the kids' favorite part of the event. Which means that we could have slept in to a more reasonable hour and gone to one of the two McDonald's restaurants that are within 2 miles from our house instead!

I jest, a little bit. Of course they like the balloon festival, the tradition of it, the music (luckily not muzak this year) and fun of it all.

My favorite part is always when the sun finally bursts out from behind the mountains causing everything to warm up and become beautiful!

This year the big hit was a Darth Vader balloon all the way from Belgium.

Landon had to recreate the jumping over Whitney photo from last year (though last year's angle was much better for the picture).

Last year's jump.

He's a looker no?

From balloon festival 2004!

**What are your 4th of July traditions?

Would you get up early for this?

Do you love McDonald's hash browns?**

Comment Window Tidbit: Our perfect, sunny 4th of July weather is actually cloudy and gray. Somehow I don't feel like hanging out at the pool.