The Fourth and Fifth and I think Third of July!

These first few are a bit random because they have nothing to do with the 4th of July, but we thought they were cute.

Jenny ordered these books that come in the mail and the Three Little Pigs came this month. It came with some masks that you could wear to act out the story while you read. Jack wanted to act it out with NaNa--

On the 3rd we went and hung with the carnies at the Freedom Days Festival in downtown Provo. Seriously I need to know where these people live every other day of the year. Jack drove the race car simulator and Mom got him some tickets to ride the ghetto boat ride that I thought would fall apart any second. We had to convince him not to ride the planes because I was confident he would have fallen out of them. He loved it!

After the carnival we went to the Orem Institute for a Freedom Concert. It was nice. My buddy I work with directs the choir at the Institute, so it was his show. But then...the cherry on top for the night--SmartCookie! We met John and Emma there for a delicious treat.

Chunk was crawling around--Emma had it perfect when she said he looked like a chimney sweep. The cookies are good, but the ground is nasty. Watch out.

We got up early on the 3rd to see the balloons from our back porch. By the time we were up, they were on their way down, and thought we would wake up the boys on the 4th to see them, but you couldn't see them as well again, so we decided to wait until next year to drive the boys over to see them up close. I was helping one of the youth in the ward with his Eagle project (which was security for the parade) so I got to see the whole parade without dealing with getting there early or sleeping overnight or standing behind the throngs of people. It was actually a really nice way to see the parade. When I got there, they put me in charge of staging all the floats. This meant I had to line them all up so they would be in the right order in the parade. I had a fancy shirt and one of the walkie talkies. It was cool. Once they were all getting into the parade I just walked the route a couple of times as security. I saw some of my students and got hit by a million of those popper things. It was fun!
In the afternoon we went up to the canyon to hang out with my brothers and sisters [except one who is in Texas :( ] and my parents who were in town and my brother-in-law's family at Vivian Park up Provo Canyon. Brian's (my brother-in-law) Dad had some rafts we could float down the river with. Me and my Dad and Mark and April and Kale all went down the river together. My Dad almost fell in, which was pretty funny. The water was FREEZING! Brian got in and swam in it which is nuts! It was fun. I had never floated on the Provo River before but hear people talking about it all the time.

We went and spent some time with Jenny's best friends from college. One of them (Megan) lives in California and the other (Maya) in Arizona now so we don't get to see them very often any more. It is fun because they are all in the same stage of life and was fun to catch up for just a bit before everyone had to fly home. We miss seeing them. One of her friends Julia, who we haven't seen since I was still at BYU was supposed to come, but her kids got sick and couldn't make it. Glad we got a minute with the other two and of course it is always good to see Erin and Spencer!

And the grande finale...We need to prune our apple trees a little for next year's firework show. This year was awesome, but there were a couple of branches in the way of the little ones that shoot up right at the top of the stadium. We got to hear the concerts from our backyard which was fun. and the plane flyovers are always cool I think. They shook our house when they came. Remember last year when Jackson hit the deck when they flew over? Just one burnt little finger and a lot of fun! (Jackson learned that the sparklers are hot--sometimes I forget that obvious things are not obvious to a two year old until you teach them)

One final shoutout--are you tired of this blog yet?? No picture, but we ran down the canyon (on the actual race course) with Mom on Saturday. I hadn't run in a while, so it jump started me back into gear! Hoody hoo! 4-5 more weeks.