Happy Fourth of July!

What a wonderful holiday! I am so grateful to live in such a beautiful country with all of the freedoms, blessings, and opportunities. Just today (Sunday) I taught a Primary lesson on gratitude and I got all choked up as I told my little 5 year olds how lucky we are to be able to live in a country where we can go to school and get an education, to have a beautiful home with yummy food to eat, to have parents that can work, and to go to a church of our choice, etc, etc. We are so lucky and I'm glad we have holidays like the 4th to remind us of what we have. Here are a few things we did to celebrate:

Freedom Festival Parade: I may never understand the significance of a parade, but since marrying Mike it is now a tradition of our family. Regardless of my lack of culture, it is still a fun time to hang with family and to hear the things Mike shouts out at the flouts that go by...


Swimming with mommy and daddy at the AF Rec Center: Okay, this was our first time taking James to a public pool and can I just say that it was awesome! They have this little lazy river and a huge kids section. Furthermore, it was clean and I only ran into one of my former students.






Fireworks at Thanksgiving Point with my sister and her family: Okay, these are awesome! They are something that not a ton of people know about yet but definately better than watching the stadium of fire outside of the stadium. (Here's James with his cousin Katelyn)



James laughing at Uncle Chris and his goofy faces!



Poor little guy--we absolutely wore him out!