July 3rd, 4th, and 5th

I love when the 4th of July falls on a Sunday. It means an entire weekend of celebrating our country's birthday, instead of just one day. This year was a little strange for our family though, because Paul and Christian left for their scout summer camp on Saturday morning, and my mom left for her YW girl's camp early Monday morning. It just felt different with so much of our family gone.

On Saturday, we went to Sandy City's parade. The highlights of the parade: lots of candy, flags for Priya, and a parrot riding a llama. We also loved the fact that the parade was in the evening, so it was cooler. The lowlights of the parade: huge gaps between floats... they definitely need to work on their spacing for next year! At one point, everyone got up and left because they thought the parade was over when actually, it was just a big gap.

My mom and Erik

My man and I

Priya loved the flags

She loved the parade, but once she got a flag, she was distracted for the rest of the parade

Once again, a good hair day for Priya

Watching the parade with Namama

After the parade, we went and walked around the booths they had set up and listened to music. We were going to stay for the fireworks, but Priya pooped out on us.





Sunday, July 4th

We went to Church (I always love how patriotic the music is on the 4th), then came home and had a small BBQ with my family (minus Paul and Christian, of course). Erik cooked his scrumptious steak. It was nice to have a slow-paced, relaxing day.

Our sweet Priya

Eating in our backyard- Erik, my mom, my dad, Katie, Grandma Cindy, and Priya

We built a bonfire afterwards and burnt more of our ever-shrinking wood pile. We are almost done!

Once it got dark, we lit off a small few fireworks we had lying around the house. Nothing exciting, but Priya thought they were fabulous. We put her down to bed and woke her up after it got dark, a few hours later. She looks so sleepy in this picture!

Watching the fireworks with Auntie Katie

This was one of the highlights of our day...we thought we would share it with you. Oh, Priya. Our sweet, silly girl. What are we going to do with you?

Monday, July 5

Andrew had the day off, so we went down to participate in the Freedom Festival celebration in Provo. We were ambitiously planning on going to see the hot air balloons lift off at 6:30 AM, but Erik forgot his running shoes (he ran the race with Kyle and Jennifer), so we had to run them to him and that derailed our plans a bit. There is always next year, I guess!

After dropping off Eriks's shoes, we watched the parade, then we went over to the booths to look around for a bit. We then went to my Aunt Lisa's and Uncle Jim's house for a BBQ. It was fun to spend time with family. Afterwards, we went with my dad over to my grandma's house to pick up some things, and didn't get home until late.

Erik and Kyle running the race

Rachel

Andrew and Jason

Aunt Lisa reading to Priya

Watching the parade (or, in Priya's case, watching something else entirely)

Walking around to see the booths

At Aunt Lisa's

At Grandma's house picking stuff up- Daddy let her "drive!" the band aids are from some fun she was having with Grandpa. She didn't really need the, but she sure liked the "stickers."

We had such a fun weekend. The only regret I had was that we didn't get Priya out to see any of the big fireworks. The nice thing about living in Utah, though, is that there is always Pioneer Day!

We are so grateful for this country and the freedoms that we enjoy! We are so glad that our founding fathers, and countless others throughout the years, were willing to sacrifice so much so that we could be so blessed!