The Days Surrounding Independence Day!

 I love Independence Day.  I always have!  It's one of my favorite days of the year.  I loved it when I was a child growing up.  I loved it when we had all our kids living at home, and I love it now that our crew has grown up!  This year didn't disappoint me one bit.  It was a good day!  (I also want to add that I love being able to snag pictures from other people's blogs!  I updated my blog after theirs were posted!)

We broke out the Washoos!  The dad added two new colors of washers this year!

Brian skunked us all!

Guess who lost...  again.

The dad wasn't too far behind Brian.

David was really cute.  He only wanted to use 3 washers.

We tried playing Bocce, but we all (women-folk) kept getting distrated, so we didn't actually even finish a game.

David is showing Susan how to play "Oh, Rats!"  He took liberties with the rules at first.

Lots of swinging at Grandma's house!

I love this picture!

We pulled out our kids' Play-Doh toys.  I can't even remember the last time these toys were used.

The ribs are ready!   (They were delicious.  I think Susan ate 10 of them.)

Peter's first rib bone.  He liked it!

A good time to update teir family picture!

Grandma bought all her grandboys Independence Day outfits!  David and Peter are sporting their new duds!

Steve, Angela and Micah celebrated Independence Day in Provo.  Here's Micah wearing his new duds!

This is Eli in the 0-3 month outfit I got for him.  Clearly it is still to big.  He can celebrate sometime, maybe in September.

Since his matching clothes didn't fit yet, he celbrated by being swaddled in this patriotic blankie!

Amy and Eli at home watching 1776!  Amy said Cody watched it for the first time this year.  Yay, Cody!

Our Independence Day parade!

Brian giving Peter his first tastes of Lemon Ice Cream during the fireworks!

It was delicious!

Susan was the Pyrotechnic this year!

Getting ready to shoot off fireworks in the driveway.  It was actually darker than it looks here.

David loved the firework show!

Brian left to go back to work on Thursday early in the morning.  The girls all went geocaching in the Vanderwagen area.

Don't you love the name of the road?

I didn't actually find this one, but Chelsea wanted me in one of the pictures.

This was a really cool one!  David got to pull this one out!

We had lots of fun in the sandbox (sandtent?).

Playing with the Waffle Village!

More fun with Oh, Rats!

We did some backyard fishing.  I forgot to take pictures of the rest of us fishing.

Brian got back Friday afternoon.  Boy, was Peter happy to see his Daddy!

We played some Frisbee Golf.  We used actual Frisbee brand discs, and they really did work better!

Sleeping babies are precious!

"The Spoiler"  is giving Peter some tastes of Root Beer Bars!

We played Clue!  Chelsea won both games.  Notice the big grin!

We ate lots of Root Beer Bars.  (I love Root Beer Bars!)

I bought this baby jail from the Sanchez's Yard Sale to keep Petey Pie from eating the grass.  Clearly I didn't think it through very well.  He ate the Baby Jail, and then he knocked it over and escaped!

Susan and I went to the Bike Park and replaced the full log on the geocache there.

Lots of swinging for the boys!

We went and replaced the geocache at the train station!

Susan and I went to see The Wizard of Oz on the big screen at The El Morro.  Wow!  It totally made a huge difference in the colors, etc.

The Dad made us delicious Dutch Babies for breakfast!

This is Baby Eli chilling while we were video chatting with his mama!

We hiked the Quaking Aspen Trail in McGaffee.  Can you see the little tadpoles in the water?

After Susan left to go back to Las Vegas, we went to La Mantanita Coop.  We were looking for Kimchi and Kefir.  As we left, we entered a drawing that would take place during the Arts Crawl that night.  We went to the Arts Crawl, and when we got home...

...we got a phone call saying we won the drawing!n  We went back and claimed our prize!