Happy Independence Day

I love the 4th of July! It is just such a fun time a year. My family always gets together and celebrates in style. This year was no different. Since a lot of us went to the Stadium of Fire at BYU on Saturday, we decided to get together and do fire works at my parents house on Friday night. My sisters and I went and get pedicures on Friday afternoon and then after Tony, Tyler, and I got to go to dinner with Tony's grandparents. They live in St. George and wanted to come up and take all of their grandchildren out to dinner. It was really nice spending time with them and enjoying a yummy meal. They have always been so sweet and welcoming to me, they are the bestest.

After dinner and spending some time with Nana and Papa, we went back to my parents for the fire works. I always like to do the "Snakes" and then I handed out the "Poppers" to all the kids. They enjoyed popping them on everything. Then we got out the real fire works and chairs and got the party started. Tyler really loves fire works and did really good watching them. He even asked for more when it was all done.

The next morning we got up early and went to my parents to walk over to the Murray Parade. My dad goes early and sets up the chairs for all of us and then he also takes his PA system and announces the parade. It makes it that much more fun. They had a lot of entries this year. Tyler really loved it until about entry #75 out of #100. Then he was ready to go. They throw lots of candy and that was fun for all the kids to collect the treats.

After the parade, we went back to my parents and hung out for a while before we started the BBQ. We had a lot of family in town, so that made the BBQ lot of fun. It is always nice to see family that you haven't seen in a while. After a long morning and afternoon, we took Tyler home and put him to bed. Then later that day, we got ready and headed down to BYU for the Stadium of Fire. It was lots of fun. Tyler had a really good time dancing to the music and watching the fire works display. I was concerned that it would be too loud and he might not like it, but he did really great. He let me cover his ears through the really loud stuff, so I was really glad about that. It was a fun, but late night. Thanks to Sherri for giving us the tickets and for sitting by us. We really did have a good time.

My extended family was in town as well this weekend because my cousin Vikki blessed her baby today. Brandy, Ryan, and her four boys stayed at our house again. It is always fun to have them stay with us. Brandy and I could talk forever. I went to the blessing with my sister Julie, and my cousin Robin. It was nice. The church was hot and the kids were all crazy, but it was a good time. After we went and had a nice lunch in, it was hot there too. Really I am always hot, so no big shocker there.

I am so grateful to live in this country. We are so lucky to have our freedoms and privileged that we have. I love that I get to go to church and stand and sing the Nation Anthem. I always get emotional when I sing it, and it is awesome. I just hope that we can keep some of these freedoms that we enjoy so much. It is a little scary what might happen in the future and scary to think where our government might take us. Lets just pray that Heavenly Father will continue to bless us.