celebrating the fourth

As we do every year, celebrating the fourth of july lasts days and days, starting with the ever-annoying carnival (the boys just read through this and can't believe I put that in there!  "How come it's annoying??" they ask).  We can't ever get out of going to it because you can see the carnival every time we drive anywhere and you can hear the music going every night until 11pm from our house.  The boys and I went with Julie and Thomas to the carnival on the first night.  We ran into many of our neighbors there too, and as hard as we tried, we couldn't get out of there soon enough--people who were leaving kept giving the boys their tickets so we ended up there until 11pm, walking out just as they were turning out the lights.  

 This year was a big deal for Ben--he tried a couple of rides that he had never tried before, including the Starship 2000 and the Fire Ball, and he LOVED them!  Both of them make me want to throw up just looking at them.  

Daren thought the boys would have fun riding in Riverton's parade, so he borrowed this old 1921 fire engine from the Fire Relief Association.  We picked it up when we had Brenda's kids with us on our way home from getting haircuts up at her house last week.

july 1

The day of the parade finally came.  It was a perfect evening, sunny and not too hot.  

 The boy's friend, Nathan, rode in the truck with us.  (His mom, Shelly, delivered twin boys the next day--been there, done that, good luck!!) 

july 2

And, as usual, we had everyone over for festivities and fireworks the evening of Saturday, the 2nd.  I know, weird because the 4th was on a Monday this year, but someone at city hall decided to do it all on the 2nd.  Once the whole family got here, Daren gave out more rides on the fire engine and then we sat down for some good food from Pat's BBQ.  

Chris Thompson and his family were staying with us for the weekend from Mexico.  

july 4

Without anything going on around here on the 4th, we decided to go boating with Brenda, JD and their family.  We got a late start out to Utah Lake, and our normal marina was closed because of flooding, so we had to drive to Provo, which part of that was flooded too.  

Will was NOT interested in putting on a swimsuit that day, and just wanted to hang out in the boat in his pajamas the whole time, drinking his Dr. Pepper.  That kid!

 Will and I both got sick (he threw up over the side of the boat), so Daren dropped us off back at the marina to go rest in the truck while the rest of them played out on the water until dark.  

As a finale to our day, we had dinner at In-n-Out.  By the time we left there at 10pm, there were fireworks going off all over the valley that we watched on our way home, only to get home and stay up another hour shooting off fireworks with the neighbors.  We cannot get to bed earlier than 11 lately!  

I have been so busy with the end-of-school stuff in May and then making scrapbooks for the boy's teachers in June that I haven't had time to blog much.  Hopefully I'll get back on track now,  because there has been lots of stuff going on.