Our 4th of July...

we skipped out on the fireworks at the stadium on the 3rd because nick was working and i didn't feel like wrangling the kids by myself WAY past their bedtimes. we picked up a few fireworks at macey's and lit them off with ammon's friends in the day-time and a few more with nick when he came home on his break from work. lucy said, "ooh-ooh" and didn't seem scared of the noise (i didn't get very noisy ones). ammon liked the snakes and the flowers with his friends, but was scared of the flowers when we lit them in the dark with nick. he also refused to hold onto the sparklers, even when i danced around with mine trying to show him how fun they were. it was nice because we got the kids in bed at a decent time... and good thing because we had a LONG day coming up.

nick got home from work and i got up at about 6:30am on the morning of the fourth. i was getting ready to make some biscuits for breakfast at mom and dad's and had a lot of stuff to get done. things got a little thrown when nick said there was some flooding outside. i made some calls and the property management guy came to check things out. turns out a farmer was irrigating in the field behind us and things got out of control. we had about 3" of standing water on our back patio and it was coming into our condo. we had about 3 feet of wet carpet in our dining room and when i opened the bathroom door, the floor was covered with about an inch of water. ARS had to come out and pull our carpet up, remove padding, and put a bunch of fans in that make an outrageously loud noise. we will find out monday how bad the damage is and what needs to be done. below are some pictures of the water outside.

we made it out to mom and dad's for breakfast just a few minutes late which was surprising given our morning. dad did not disappoint with the food and the kids had a good time playing with cousins and eating pancakes. ammon was wearing his pull-ups and had a poopy that he decided to clean up himself. that didn't work out so well and he got his new fourth of july shirt dirty. he was upset that he didn't get to wear it anymore and wanted a new one, but it was probably for the best because everyone said lucy looked like a boy in hers. i took the kids home and changed them, woke up nick, and headed to the parade in hyrum.

mom had saved us some seats the night before for the parade (thanks mom!) so nick got to sleep a bit longer before we had to head over. crystal, faye, and lydia came with us so that was super-fun! ammon was excited to see fire trucks, police cars, and horses in the parade. this really is the best parade and it is kind of a family tradition. they throw lots of candy (and cheese, icy-pops, etc) and ethan got hit in the head with a piece of candy, he didn't think that was very fun. we had a good time and ammon got lots of candy. other people that were at the parade with us: mom, aunt raylene and uncle randy, mandi and ryan and their boys, jessica and bridget, landon, and the jordans.

after the parade, nick had to go home to get ready for work and we headed over to mendon for a family bbq. we were told that there was going to be a big slip-and-slide on the hill and it sounded like fun. it ended up being the high-light of the picnic and almost everyone that stuck around ended up going down it. even grandma lewis! below are some video clips of different people heading down the slide.

anyway, i have a few more video clips, maybe i will post some more later, so check back. we had a great time and laughed so hard when mom went down the slide that i thought i was going to pee my pants, seriously. you can't hear it as well in the video clip, but she was screaming so loud! and i think we were all surprised when grandma lewis went down the slide... twice! ammon wasn't sure about it at first and i had to throw him down it a couple of times. (he had fun going down, he just wouldn't decide to go on his own) but then later you couldn't get him off the slide. it was so much fun, mandi decided to have her birthday at a place that has a huge slip-n-slide. here are a few pictures of the rest of the kids going on the water slide.

on saturday i got up early to do a garage sale with some other people in our condos. at 6:30am i was thinking i'd rather be in bed and wasn't sure i wanted to go through the effort of pulling out all my junk just to haul it back in side. i was kind of frustrated and was just saying a prayer in my mind that things would go okay and i'd get through the day. well, things turned out better than okay and i'm so glad that i did it. i actually sold a lot of my stuff, and it was all pretty much junk so i was pretty excited about that. it was fun just hanging out with my friend crystal and having "power hour" to focus on selling a particular item. my favorite customer was an old guy that pulled up in a camero convertible with no shirt and a hankerchief tied around his neck, hairy chest, and super tan. he bought a couple of things from me and paid with a check so if anyone wants his phone number... anyway, the kids were a super-big help and priced things with the stickers, including themselves. later that day i headed out and met the family for the cache valley cruise-in. for any of you that don't know, it is one of the largest classic car shows in the country and people from all over the country come to show off their cars. ammon and lucy had a lot of fun waving at the cars. ammon also had fun rough housing with his cousins and they took turns kicking and hitting each other (all in fun of course). lucy kept wandering and started putting on a little show for the people sitting next to us. it was lots of fun and ammon really liked seeing all the "race cars". when he was saying the prayer at dinner tonight he thanked heavenly father for the "race cars" and for the "race cars at the parade". it was very cute. anyway, that is the last of our fun weekend.