7/4/13

The 4th of July this year was pretty awesome. We were busy from sun up to sun down and I loved it all. We participated in the 2nd annual White Family 5K but I didn't get any pictures of that. Thankfully my trusty FIL is also a historian at heart so I stole am borrowing these from his photo stream.

The finishers 

I impressed myself by walking the entire thing with Danny and Cole impressed us both by staying up in the front of the pack with a run/walk the entire time! We had a heck of a time getting him to commit to even doing it at first. Then he said he'd ride his scooter (still struggling with the bike). He slept over at Whites on Wednesday night because he wanted to help prep for the race by writing with sidewalk chalk along the route. Turns out it rained over night and it was all washed away. When we got there early the next morning he informed us that he was going to run the entire race. Sweet. I was shocked. Angie and Greg kept Danny and I company for the entire route and it went by pretty quickly. That's the most active I'd been since October so I was pretty pumped about not dying. I still can't believe what a difference .5 mg of a little green pill can do for my special neck and back muscles...

After the race we enjoyed some Mountain Man breakfast (one of my faves) and I took a short nap on the couch to prepare for the rest of the day. Then we headed home to shower and get cleaned up to head out to Stansbury Park to join the Millers at Scott & Melissa's for a yummy lunch and some fun on their neighbor's beachfront property.

Danny and I took a nice ride in the canoe. The lake was gorgeous and there was a nice breeze so it wasn't too hot. I can see why Scott & Melissa love it there. It's a great area.

Cole was content on the beach with his little cousins.

Danny and I headed back to the house to prepare our contribution to the Anderson Family Firework Show Extravaganza (official name--as of right this second) that night. Thanks Pinterest. What did we ever do without you?

I love having a husband who will geek out about doing fun things like this with me. It's so much more fun to do it *together*!

We were appropriately razzed about only bringing cubed watermelon to the lunch with my side of the family but then making a big effort to put something fancy together for the Andersons. But can you see why? This is just the dessert table...

Scott impressed us all with his cake pop cake. Very festive and it was a hit.

One of my favorite parts of this gathering with the Andersons is seeing the kids get decked out with glow sticks. There's just something so happy about them, I can't put my finger on it. It started out simple enough with just a few sticks per kid but by the time it was actually dark, these kids were sporting some serious glowage. There were over 300 glowsticks spread out among probably 5-7 kids and maybe 10 adults who wore a couple.

The beginning:

Danny captured this great shot of Ellie after things got serious:

Don't you just want to be a kid again?

It's funny what kinds of things make you proud of your kids. This year, one of those things will definitely be Cole daring to hold a sparkler all by himself. He has always been very cautious and frightened by fireworks, even down to the little sparklers but this year he surprised Danny and I both. He was even found playing with the little snappers. Such a small victory for our little guy but a victory all the same.

We decided to walk a few houses down the street to Aunt Suzie's to get a better view of the Sugarhouse Park fireworks and I'm so glad we did. It was well worth the 1 minute walk with a heavy camp chair. They have a completely unobstructed view of the fireworks! I'm not sure why we've been sitting in Grandma Anderson's yard all these years but now we know Suzie's little secret... ;)

We usually leave early so we don't get stuck in the horrible traffic but this year we stayed for the whole show and I didn't mind a bit. We of course got caught in traffic but it's all part of the experience. I had such a fun day and was happy that I was feeling pretty good to enjoy it all. We had serious withdrawals on July 5th when Dad was back at work and we were at home doing nothing fun. Thank goodness we live in Utah and get to celebrate Pioneer Day so we get a second dose of the fun.