July

For the fourth of July we went down the street to the Becksteads to watch their fireworks.  Their son had bought a ton of them and it was fun to watch.  A few minutes into it their sprinklers turned on and got us all wet.  It was a night full of excitement.  None of my pictures are very good, but I’m going to put some on here anyway.
 Liam loved “playing with fire”Can you see the excitement on her face??
The weekend after this we joined Bonnie at a triple header Shakespeare performance at the Utah State hospital done by Grassroots Shakespeare.  Em and I only stayed for the first two shows, but they were both really good even with the background music of the 7 peaks dance going on. 
I don’t remember what else we did in July since I have no more pictures until the 24th of July weekend.  Just assume that we did so many awesome things that we didn’t have time to take pictures. 
Our Pioneer day weekend was packed full of fun.  Jason and I started by going to the carnival as part of our date night.  We got funnel cake and rode the ferris wheel.  It would have been more fun in the dark, but I got a good laugh at Jason’s reaction as we went down the first time.  (it was a pretty fast ferris wheel)
 Yummy funnel cakeon the ferris wheel waiting for the ride to start.
The view from the top
Saturday we started the day at the Children’s parade with Liam.  He and I got to ride on the float for our Ward and then he had fun at the kids carnival afterwards.
  On the float Playing with his pinwheel while we waited in line to bowl.
He knocked a few down.  Playing with his cousin KensieGolfing.  He came away with tons of candy, a ticket to go on a ride at the big carnival, and lots of little toys too.  It’s a really busy place to go, but it was worth it to see him having fun. 
Saturday Jason took the kids to the carnival on his own.  I was gone somewhere, but I can’t remember where.  They had a lot of fun together, but I don’t’ have any pictures of their fun. 
Monday we had our very first Rodeo experience.  It was pretty fun to watch even though none of us really understood exactly what was going on as far as how the scores were given or anything.  It was still lots of fun and we will surely be going again. 
I think this is the one where they had to jump off their horse, flip the calf and tie its legs.  The rodeo clown.  He was from Walla Walla, WA that’s pretty close to where my parents live.  Em and Jason showing their enthusiasm.
Liam didn’t know what to think at first, but it grew on him.  Especially when Dad brought back concessions to eat!
Proof I was there.This is our friend Teni.  He did mutton busting the night we went to the rodeo and it was right below our seats.  It was fun to watch.  Liam thinks he wants to try to do it next year.  Teni on the sheep.  He didn’t last long this year.  I guess he did better last year.  The bull riding.  I have to say I was a little bummed that only ONE of the riders all night stayed on the full time.  Most of them got thrown pretty fast after coming out of the gate. 
The only thing I didn’t like about it was the constant commercials.  It was worse than tv because you couldn’t even change channels and it was the same few commercials the whole time.  I think the whole thing would have been 30 minutes shorter if they had just done one for each sponsor and left it at that. 
Tuesday dawned bright and early because we had to get Jason down to the parade.  Then we went to watch it ourselves.  Luckily our former Stake president lives on the parade route and he was kind enough to let us sit in his yard so we had great seats even though we didn’t save them days in advance.  Liam got tons of candy and that was all he needed to be happy. 
First we say Camden and Brighton with their karate studio.
Later on Jason’s Karate studio came by.  I made him come do something cool so I could get a good picture.  I don’t’ know if you can tell, but this is a jumping kick so neither of his feet are on the ground.  We were hot and tired when the parade was over so we went home and rested until it was time for our family picnic.
Every year on the 24th we have a family picnic up the canyon at the park and then we go see Matthew’s grave.  It is a great family tradition with both fun  and remembrance.  It love that we take the time to visit Jason’s brother’s grave and remember him. 
Shortly after we ate someone (I strongly suspect Liam) started a water fight.  The kids all had a blast getting wet since it was REALLY hot. 
 Liam getting BrooklynAndy helping Kate get LiamGrandma and Bailey watching all the fun.
We decided not to watch the big fireworks this year, but it turned out that so many of our neighbors had bought cool fireworks that we had our very own really great show right in our front yard.  This is one of the fireworks Jason Jr. bought because he was dying to light some fireworks of his own. 
All in all I’d say we had a pretty awesome week of celebration.