Fourth of July celebrations

I have always loved the fourth of July.  It's fun to carry on traditions that I remember as a child.  I bought flag tee shirts for the kids in hopes of helping them gain some patriotism, I'm so grateful for all of those who have fought to preserve our freedom over the course of our countries history.  It is an honor to wear a flag, and I'm so proud of our colonial history, and our founding father's.  This year we started out the celebration with a yummy breakfast at my parents house.  Then we headed to our city's parade.  About half way through I asked Dan "why do we do this every year again?"  Standing in the sun watching trucks drive by gets old after the first 20 min. or so.  To answer my question, we do it because it's a tradition, and the kids love it.  Then we went over to the park carnival to let the kids spend their allowance money.  Kate bought an oriental umbrella, Kirk got a sword, and Benjamin got a squishy ball thing.  This is actually one of the highlights of the fourth of July for the kids.  They love buying toys at the carnival.  They had a lemonade stand a few weeks early to earn some money to spend at the carnival.  I'm glad they were able to find something fun to buy. 

Then it was off to Bear Lake.  Dan's parents just finished building a home on the lake there, and we couldn't wait to spend our first few nights there.    The water is so blue that it almost looks like the ocean.  We spent a lot of time in the sun, the kids played in the sand, went boating, and kayaking, and played with all of their cousins from morning til night.  I have to admit it was probably one of our favorite trips because it was so laid back.  We just did what we felt like doing and slept when we felt like sleeping.  I think we will be spending more weekends up at bear lake this summer!  That night we watched fireworks over the lake.  Bear lake had technically banned fireworks, but it looked like some of the neighbors were lighting them anyways.  They gave us a pretty good show.  Most of the fire works were shot off over the lake, so I don't think it was a fire hazard, it might of startled a few geese, but other then that it was safe. 

Here is the photo I took of the moon shinning on the lake.  It was the most spectacular orange moon I had ever seen.  I was glad I could capture it in this photo.  This is what it looked like, I've never seen anything quite like it.  The moons reflection shined across the entire lake straight to our shore line.  It's another reminder that God loves his children so much that he gave us such a beautiful earth to enjoy!

Baseball 2012

Baseball season!  Okay so I'm a bad baseball mom.  We missed Kirk's baseball team pictures this year.  All of the kids on his team got pictures except for Kirk.  It was crazy because I usually at least remember that I forgot something.  But honestly I have no recollection of even hearing about when his pictures took place.  Kirk was feeling really bummed ( I don't blame him).  So I did a little impromptu photo shoot of him after his last game.  It's times like these that I'm really glad I have a nice camera to take these kinds of photos.  Kirk has really enjoyed baseball this year.  I think it's his favorite sport, which makes me happy too because it's one of my favorites as well.  I grew up loving baseball both of my brothers played, and my Dad also was an awesome player for Weber State.

Black family stay-cation!  My sister's came to visit us the first part of June.  Karyn and her husband Matt were moving from Hawaii to Maryland.  They are in the Army so they have lived everywhere.  They were living in New York City when 9-11 happened.  They have been in Hawaii for the past four years, and they were so excited to get off of that island.  They flew from Hawaii to Sandiego and spent some time there and visited sea world.  She said you know it's bad when you request no ocean view.  They were actually tired of the ocean.  Kristen Came from Colorado Springs.  It was so fun to have the entire family all together again.  We toured downtown  SLC.  My sister's wanted their kids to see the temple and the church sites.  We also checked out city creek.  It was so nice, I'd really like to go back down when I could have more time to shop.  We also did alot of swimming, caught a movie with just us girls, and took the kids up to the mountains for an afternoon.  The only hard thing about having my sister's visit is that I realize how much I'm missing out because they live so far away.  I wish our kids could see their cousins more, and I wish we could have girls nights all the time.  We were able to get a great family photo together.  My neighbor Randee Worster is an amazing photographer.  I'd highly recommend her.