Happy 4th of July!

Ah, the Fourth of July! Always one of my favorite holidays. This year we spent it in St. George with my family. It was a busy, hot, fun weekend. We did many things and my talented sister Amy took many, many pictures of it all! I went home with a disc containing over 600 pictures taken in just two days! It's taken me a while to sort through it all, but I've finally narrowed it down. It's not necessarily in order, but we'll start with the festivities on the 4th:

Marissa took a late nap on the 4th and was wide awake for all the evenings' fun. She loved the fireworks! She would clap her hands and laugh and point.

She's also officially a walking pro now! She started walking about a week or so before the 4th of July and hasn't stopped since. We're both very happy about it!

We went to the local firework show at the park. While waiting for the fireworks to start, of course we had to get shaved ice from the Sno Shack. Marissa is a little mooch and would go from person to person and grunt at them until they gave her a taste. Brandon was happy to oblige!

As it got darker, Amy wanted to experiment with her camera and the kids' glow sticks. They were happy to help her out! Maylan was especially good at the freaky eyes!

After the local show, we went back to my parents house to have a show of our own. This is a real treat for our kids because we are unable to light our own fireworks here. Notice my brother David and the blowtorch. They can't just use regular matches to light fireworks. And this is only a few months after the incident where he and Matt almost blew themselves up with gunpowder and magnesium. Anyway, it was entertaining.

Ryan's contribution to the home show were some completely legal smoke bombs. This turned out to be the kids' favorite part. The smoke bomb blew up all around my brother Ben and for some reason, they thought this was hilarious. It was a great Fourth of July and the fun didn't stop there. There's much more to come!