4th of July

It struck me recently that the 4^th of July is probably in my top 3 holidays.  We had the quintessential 4^th of July weekend and I thoroughly enjoyed it, along with the rest of the family.  Friday we decided last minute to crash the annual church campout for our old ward and it was a blast! Not only did we have free camping at a highly desired campsite on a holiday weekend, but the meals were provided and we got to visit with a lot of old friends.  Besides the fact that Jonas woke at 3:30 a.m. to eat and, consequently, woke the rest of us in the tent (after which Lillian never fell asleep again), it was fabulous.  Poor Jared took the brunt of it taking Lilly out of the tent at 5:15 to keep her from waking all the rest of us up.  She just came home the next day and had a 6 hour nap to make up for it.

We went to church where we could appreciate the freedom to worship as we please and Monday we enjoyed all the usual festivities.  Since we live on a main road in town, the parade comes to us.  We invited The Woolfords over for breakfast (crepes with red and blue berries and white cream), and then walked out our front door to watch the 5K run, cruise in and parade come right past our house.  We had shade, both the babies took naps inside the house while the rest of us enjoyed the noise, animals, flags, etc.  and I brought out some otter pops for all the neighbor kids when it started to get hot.  Lillian was so great at waving her flag really tall pretty much the whole parade… So cute!   

That afternoon we went to a BBQ and swim party at the Woolfords and then watched the fireworks that night.  The girls were talking really big about the fireworks, but by the grand finale they were in the car so they could see the fireworks without hearing the noise, and Jonas was completely smitten. He loved every minute of it.  We had some exclusive seating because our next door neighbor works at an office near the city park and we could park there, have our own bathroom and set up all the kids on a blanket in the parking lot and not deal with the traffic and congestion of going to the park with everyone.  It doesn’t get better than that to celebrate the freedoms we enjoy in our country and appreciate those who have sacrificed to make it what it is today!