4th of July (actually 3rd & 5th)

We had a REALLY fun weekend full of "4th of July" fun...even though everything occurred on the 3rd or 5th of July. :)

On the 3rd, we experienced our very first Murray City Fun Days Parade!

A few families in our ward go every year and make a big to-do out of it, including a big breakfast before the parade. One family goes the night before with their camper and they stay overnight. They offered to take our camping chairs with them and set them up so that our "spots" would be saved! We had great seats and ended up front row and center right in front of the Best Buy shopping center.

The breakfast included quite the spread of yummy things. I think Lilly quite enjoyed sharing Matt's plate of food.

When the parade started, the boys were so excited. They loved when people in the parade would throw candy or other fun favors like tattoos, stickers, and necklaces.

However, Sam was not a big fan of the fire truck's siren...so this was his coping technique. We knew a few of the firefighters who were riding on the truck, and they were kind enough to throw us a few necklaces for the kids. That made Sam a bit happier:

I was surprised at the things that Tyler thought were cool...like the Tongan Church band. He was mesmerized!

This is was mesmerized ME:

These four Jeeps would drive along and stop every once in awhile to do a fun trick. The trick consisted of the middle (yellow) Jeep stopping in the middle of the other four Jeeps. Then the four jeeps would drive up onto the tires of the yellow Jeep. I don't know if that made sense the way I typed it...but it was cool.

We were also entertained by the family group next to us. They were VERY enthusiastic and said (yelled) the most hilarious things to the people in the parade. For example, when a beauty queen float would come by from any random city, they would yell, "You're our FAVORITE city!" Or when the Mayor's car drove by they yelled, "You're our FAVORITE mayor!" This went on and on during the whole parade...and you would think that it got really old...but it DIDN'T! I was laughing the whole time!

On the night of the 3rd we went up to Kathy & Dave's house for a little pizza party and get together with the Croppers. I didn't have my camera to capture the action, but we had a really fun time hanging out with everyone.

On the 5th, Matt had to work (Bummer? - yes - but we love the DOUBLE pay on federal holidays!)...but only an 8 hour shift so that he could join us for a BBQ at my Mom & Dad's house. We enjoyed a lovely dinner and then took the kids across the street to buy some fireworks. Even though it was still light when we did them, the kids thought it was extremely cool! Here's Grandma Deb with her boys:

Grandpa was our official lighter of the fireworks. The boys were seriously impressed with his skills.

We also were daring and tried two new ice-creams for dessert. One was "Lemonade Swirl" (it was just "ok") and the other was "Birthday Cake" (it was very tasty, but VERY sweet). I'm not much of an ice-cream girl, but I was impressed with the cake-flavored goodness. (p.s. Grandma Nan introduced us the "Cupcake" flavored Magic Shell a few weeks ago. That was yummy too. I just had no idea there were so many flavors of Magic Shell available: Orange Creamsicle, Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, Cupcake, etc.)

All in all, we had a great weekend celebrating Independence Day! It was great to have it stretched for three days! And it was extra special to have Matt with us for the majority of it. He usually works on the big holidays, so it's always a treat to have him available for some of the celebrations!!!