J4W, Part: Monday (the actual 4th!)

HOLY MOLY PICTURES.

Yea, Happy 4th of July! We left early and headed back to Provo for the Grand Parade.

Front-row seats thanks to the generous people behind us.

An interesting parade entry.

The Utah Provo Mission missionaries and President (in car).

Cool Cosmo.

After the parade we found a spot to eat our picnic lunch. It was the perfect spot - on a chapel's quaint, shady lawn. Lovely.
Man did she look adorable. Too bad she just can't quite get the "smile normal" part. But sweet nonetheless!

Whaddup Jay-dog?

The kids loved playing on the trees and just running around having a fun time.

After the picnic the next quest was to find a shaved-ice place. We found this one - the one where Ben had his very first shaved-ice (with me, nonetheless). It's an awesome "store." Soooo good. We weren't the only ones wanting shaved-ice on this hot, festive day.

YUM!

Of course Lucy loved it, too! :)

Then it was back to my parent's home. We had a little bit of "down-time" (which, of course, meant my kids playing in the garage). Then we got out the slip-n-slide!

Oh this picture is my kids checking out the snakes that the next-door kids (19 visiting kids!) had found near the marshy area by my parent's home. I loved it when one boy came to me, while we were sliding away, "Uh, just so you know, some of our snakes got loose." Nice. Picked up Lucy. But I think they found them all pretty quickly. . . Jonas, after his big incident of riding over one on his bike, was way-less squeamish and even held one. The neighbor kids even offered us a free snake! I declined.

Slip-n-slide was followed by late naps and dinner.

Then pop-rocks. I don't really know what you call them. Is pop-rocks candy? Anyhow, these are the extent of fireworks I got. But, really, my kids love them! Maybe next year I'll buy them 2 boxes each. :)
Jonas went for a twirly send-off!

Miles went for an up, up, and away send-off!

Then that evening my 3 boys went with my parents to their annual Oakley rodeo tradition. It was another late evening for them - getting home at 11pm. But they really, really liked it! Miles especially loved the clowns, I think. The last few days at home the kids have dressed up as cowboys and the such. Even making Emmy wear her cowgirl stuff. :) Cute.

I like this picture.

The girls stayed home with me. I put Lucy down and then Emmy and I watched Tangled. We also watched some of the neighbors' fireworks. BOOM! She had a hard time falling asleep in the big room by herself and so I brought her back up at 10pm for the town's fireworks. She lasted about 3 minutes - then told me she was cold and tired and wanted to go to bed. I patted her and told her goodnight and that was that. :)

Fun Fourth!

J4W, Part: Sunday

Sunday started out with us all going to church. At different times, though. Ben took the 3 oldest kids and went at 9am with my parents. Lucy was sleep deprived from everything going on the past few days (plus the awakening in the night on Saturday when fireworks started going off right next to her window! poor gal woke up and was probably quite surprised to be held by someone she'd never seen before. she took a little while to fall back asleep that night - like not until 12:30ish. ugh.) Anyways, so I let her take her morning nap and then went to Sacrament with Lucy at 11. After church and lunch we went to SLC to Temple Square, mainly to the Church History Museum. They have a section for kids and so we thought we'd check it out.

They have all these little sections with stories and an accompanying activity. It was pretty cute and the kids enjoyed themselves:

Fishing on "Nephi's boat."

Oh! Look what Jonas caught!

I'm not sure what Lucy is holding - a tarantula? Scary, but it entertained her for quite a bit.

They had a cute video of some Latino lady doing dances and you are suppose to try and do what she did. It was pretty adorable.

This girl never gets enough of spinning in skirts!

They had a bunch of other activities that were fun, too. It was hot, though, that afternoon and so we didn't spend much time walking around the Temple.

We got home and practically had dinner waiting for us. How nice is that!? The kids of course spent some time in the garage - again.
Curlers don't get in the way of this little gal. :)

J4W, Part: Saturday

Saturday, up and at 'em! We woke up and headed down to Provo to hike the Y. We did this last year and it was one of the boys' merit badge requirements for "hiking." My mom came with us and so that was extra special.

We were not the only ones with the brilliant idea to hike the Y. The parking lot (and then some) was packed full. But we found a good and close spot and were still glad we got there in the morning before the full blast of the sun was out.

Miles was such a good sport! Not even one complaint from him. Even though, according to him, his "legs hurt." He had tons of questions and just kept a going. He was great.

I don't think I see a love of hiking in Emmy's future. But she did okay - with a lot of help from Ben. Help as in carrying her up for a lot of it.

Adorable little Lucy. Last year she was 8 months old gestationally when we hiked the Y. I much prefer carrying her on the outside. I mean, look what I get to look at!

There we are! Success! Jonas complained a little, but not too much. But he did it! Wahoo. As we were going down (which is so much worse, really!) I asked Jonas, "But wasn't it sort of fun?" He said "no." Then I explained that some things really aren't fun, but they are still worth doing in order to accomplish hard tasks, etc. I'm sure he had tuned me out by then.

Cute kids with their cute grandma.

Lucy finally fell asleep on the hike down. Awwww.

After the hike we headed to the BYU campus. I had to get a few items from the bookstore. We wandered through a bit of the campus and such and then ate lunch at the CougarEat. My dad had joined us by this time.
Just a picture of the kids at some statue on campus. Proof that we were there I guess. (Poor Ben is hardly in any photos. He enjoyed "getting to know" our new camera and delighted in using it. A lot.)

After BYU we went to Cabelas. It's a fun place. But perhaps more fun when you don't have 4 kids with you? Anyways. . . we had a bunch of "Cabela money," via our credit card usage, and so we were able to get 3 sleeping bags. Now we've got a total of 6 pretty good sleeping bags. Sweet.

After that we drove home and the afternoon was spent in more swimming (this time in shifts: me and emmy, then ben and the boys), garage play, and naps for all the kids.

We made the kids take a late nap because that evening, at 8:15, we were going to an outdoor theater production of The Sound of Music (one of my favorites!) So I left Lucy with a stranger at my parent's house (but boy was she a cute darling of a stranger. a 14-year old girl from my parent's ward.) and we headed a few miles to the "theater."

I loved it. I loved watching my kids watching it just as much, too! It was a fun and great production, I thought. The kids really did like it, too. They stayed up for it all - it wasn't over until close to 11pm! Nuts. It got a little cool and so luckily at intermission we all got some hot chocolates to share. We did bring jackets and blankets, too. It was just a fun evening watching a wonderful play.

And so that was our Saturday.

July 4th Weekend (J4W), Part: Friday

We just got back from a pretty great trip to my parent's home for the 4th. We did a lot of stuff, had a lot of fun, and got a lot of pictures. So, to make it a little more bearable, I'm going to break up our weekend into days. We left Thursday and so our first real day was Friday.

First things first: ride my dad's new toy. He's been wanting one of these things for a while and finally his wife conceded. :) My kids loved riding around in it and I even enjoyed the little ride I went on with Ben. On a nice, paved road. Ha.

The happy crew.

I love those faces. Ben said about Jonas: "He looks like an old man!" A cute old man, of course.

Then it was on to minnow-catching. Miles always wants to do this. Always. It's pretty much the first thing he talks about when we get there. So it was good to go and get it "out of the way." :)

The kids rode bikes to the pond area. My mom loves garage sells and finds amazing deals. She got this adorable princess bike (which, of course, Emmy loved!) for $5. So fun.

Does he look happy or what?

The minnow-catching group. I love how Emmy is totally not in to it.

They caught like a dozen or so minnows and so I'd say it was a success. For us. The minnows all died within the next 3 days or so.

Lucy and I joined the fun as soon as Lucy woke up from her morning nap.

Go, go, get them. Ever since we listened to Laura from Little House on the Prairie talk about minnow-catching, my boys have been pretty enthralled by it.

We went swimming that afternoon as well. It was a grand time, except me being nervous seeing as my kids don't know how to swim. But they got some pool-toys shared to them and had a lot of fun. After that, the boys and I rode our bikes and met my parents, Ben, and the girls at the local dairy farm/barn/store.

There we are on the trail. It was a fun ride. Except for when Jonas biffed it. But he was pretty cool about it.

Little biker dude enjoying his delicious treat (we also got "squeaky cheese" - a favorite).

Of course I shared my sherbet with her. But that's not all you see on her face. I think she got quite a few tastes from just about everyone. :) Lucky.

After that the kids probably played in the driveway/garage area. They loved riding their bikes, scooters, roller-blades, etc. in that area and did it a least a couple times each day we were there.

Then we had dinner and bed. Goodnight!

P.S. I have to mention, for the sake of journaling, that after minnow-fishing the kids were all riding their bikes back home. The boys were ahead, and my mother and I followed - along with Emmy and Lucy. All of sudden I heard some screaming from up ahead. Miles had lagged behind Jonas and came riding up to me: "Jonas needs you!" I was like, okay, well if he needs me he can come and talk to me (he was still riding on his bike so I new he didn't get hurt). Well I kept hearing him scream and I had no idea what had happened. By the time I reached him he was obviously upset and crying. Then he blurted out, "I ran over a snake! It had a rattle!" (It did not have a rattle. Well, I didn't see it, but I'm pretty sure only grass snakes frequent that area. . .). I tried calming him down and told him that that was pretty cool and nothing to worry about. And I couldn't keep myself from laughing. It was hilarious. He finally calmed down. Now he'll have a story to brag about in kindergarten. :)

Ballet

A wonderful gal in our ward just started teaching ballet classes. And I have a little girl that was just thrilled, thrilled!, to do ballet. It's one of the most adorable things I've seen: a bunch of beautiful little girls dancing and prancing about. In leotards and tights. Oh my.