USA USA USA

Last week was the Fourth of July. My family came down to my brother's house and we had a giant cookout. We had enough food to feed the whole neighborhood and then some. But we are champs and stuffed ourselves silly. We got out the slip-n-slide, the kiddy pool, and the giant umbrella to just relax outside all day long. I lurved it. I love July 4th. Everyone is so patriotic and happy. Especially in my family. America= the best ever. I decided I would kick off the day with a Independence Day monologue to get my family pumped. I memorized the speech about Indepence Day from the movie Independence Day. You know the one that goes, "We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight, etc etc". Very motivating and inspiring. Any way, it was going to be classic, but when I walked outside to do it, our neighbors were all out there and I was embarrassed and chickened out. Epic failure. Ah well, I will have to find a different opportunity to make a fool out of myself. :)

I was worried about the firework shows since there have been so many fires around here. There were bans in almost every city from lighting off your own fireworks, but luckily, the shows were still able to go on. We just went down the street a little bit and were able to see the whole valley and the fireworks were pretty close. It was fabbity fab. I think my favorite are the ones that fountain out and are gold. My 3 year old neice said, "Oh my heck, that is so weird. How does that even happen?". I agree, fireworks are totally magical.

So this is the best picture we got of the night. We look really cute. Turns out the flash on my phone is incredibly bright. Anyway, Happy 4th!

Other news: My sister-in-law is about to have a baby. I can't freaking wait. I'm sure she can't either but it will be fun to have a little tiny human in the house. I have a doctor's appointment on Thursday and I am soooo impatient for it. I just want to hear my little buddies heart beat and make sure all is well. Plus, in like 3 and a half weeks we get to find out what we're having! AHHHHH. Babies are cool.

Proud to Be an American

  
 The 4th of July this year was so great. This year, my sister, sis-in-law, and I decided to wake up bright and early and run in the Freedom Festival race! Erin and I ran a 5K and Tam ran a 10K (she is hardcore). I had been trying to run, and failing miserably, prior to the race but I just decided I would give it a try. It was tough, but I did it! It was really fun and inspired me to do more races! We are already doing a 60 mile relay race at the end of August so I need to kick my butt into shape. Anyway, I was very proud of us girlies.

runners

The rest of the day we spent at a really cute park up Wasatch Blvd. We ate delicous fried chicken, played bocci ball and frisbee golf, and hung out with family while my dad blared songs about America for all the park to hear.

That night we headed over to a high school in sandy that looked out over the whole city, planted our family down, and enjoyed all the fireworks going off all around us. Hearing the booms and seeing all the awesome colors explode across the sky is one of my favorite things! Especially when a girl next to us lit her sparkler and my 4 yr old niece looked at it skeptically and then said to me, "she's gonna kill us."

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