4th of July

Our Independence Day was fabulous!! The last 2 years of living here I've not enjoyed this holiday at all. I was always so homesick and lonely and it was never anything special. This year as it approached I decided to do something about it. So I got a big group of friends and family and we rented a pavilion at Kepler Park, and Shalee and I organized a little program for the kids to do. We ended up having a huge turn out and everybody had such a good time! The weather could not have been better. Normally it's cooler temps and cloudy/rainy. But it was probably the hottest day we've had (maybe a high of 81?) and sunny the whole day, even giving us a little bit of a sunburn!! We never get that here. We got there around noon, and everyone filtered in at different times. Basically the kids didn't leave the water the whole time. They were catching little minnows by the bucket full and just having a blast. They have some boats you can rent by the hour, so Kenny and Andy took our kids out for a ride and a little trout fishing. We did a BBQ and everyone contributed food for the event so it was easy. After dinner we had our little program. We had originally had high expectations, but realized we needed to simplify it a lot more. I think it ended up being just right. We talked a little about what this holiday is, the flag, and how grateful we are to live in this great nation! We sang a couple songs as a group, and had the kids perform a couple songs too, along with the pledge of allegiance. I wanted to record it all, but of course got there and realized my battery on the video camera was dead. I caught a few seconds of each song on my phone, but I was a little busy and didn't get the footage or pictures I wanted. That's okay, it was still good. I really just loved catching up with our Anchorage friends and actually feeling like we celebrated this great holiday. It was the first time I wasn't wishing all day we were down in Utah or just with family. We have so much to be thankful for and love being Americans! (Even though we sometimes feel like we left the country when we moved here haha--Alaska is so far away from the rest of the "mainland")

The kids were completely wiped out when we got home. Kelsey didn't nap the whole day! We rinsed off all the sand and sent them to bed. We didn't do any fireworks again. They don't start them until midnight, and it's not even dark then. I'll always miss that. But our kids don't remember any different so it's okay. Definitely the best 4th of July in the last 3 years.

Can I also just throw in the fact that I did french braids in both Brynlee and Madison's hair? That's sort of a big deal for me. I'm horrible at hair-doing but I'm practicing. They're very patient with me :).   

Singing "You're A Grand Old Flag"

Just to remember we had 10 families, and about 30 kids. The families that came: Andy and Shalee Weston, Jason and Ann Reed, Sam and Carmin Sponseller, Joshua and Shasta Peterson, Keith and Cathie Coombs, Joshua and Rebecca Swift, Brandon and Cassandra Lemmon, Brian and Susanna Ellis, Ashley and ___ Bracken, and Amethyst and her husband.