4th of July weekend

I just arrived back in Boise after a fantastic weekend with my family. I am not sure where to begin with all that has happened and been felt that I will post tomorrow the events of the weekend. :)

Okay-So, it has now been a week and I am a slacker in posting the weekends events. I was waiting for some pictures to go with it, but that looks like it might be awhile so I will just write about it and post pictures at a later date.

I went home to my parents house for the 4th weekend as all of my siblings were going to be together for the event-ALSO-any opportunity to be with my family I will ALWAYS take it!! :) My brother and his wife and son came up from Las Vegas and my sister has been visiting with her two daughters (in Utah) from Washington: along with my oldest sister and parents who already lives in Utah. The stars had aligned and we were all together!! Except I realized we have no picture of all of us together to prove it! So ironic. Anyway, the festivities began on Thursday July 3rd as my brother arrived from Vegas that evening and we met up at my parents house. My parents and sister from Washington and a conglomeration of neices and nephews from both sisters were there. We sat in the backyard and enjoyed the cool evening for awhile before we headed to bed for an early morning of activities. We started with a parade in Orem that morning-we all kind of met up on the parade route from our various destinations: Hank was already there shooting photos for work; Layne, Jayme and Payce and I came from West Jordan and my parents, sisters and the rest of the neices and nephews and Shauna came from Orem were they had met up to ride together.



We had quite the army that morning! We sat on the parade route also with Hank's mother and some of his siblings. We also sat near some family friends, the Dever's. Kiersten showed up a little while later as well. It was great to all be together. There is something you feel differently for your family than you do for anyone else. I don't know how to explain it: there is a mixture of excitement and love that sometimes leaves me speechless. (If that makes any sense?)



Lori (my sister that lives in Utah) and there family had brought food for breakfast to eat while we watched the parade. We saw some friends in the parade. It was a nice morning, except for a small scare that was my fault. Due to a ginormous huckleberry tree where we were sitting, I had managed to get them all over my pants: including my hind parts. My brother was letting me know I had stains there and I was joking that he should take a picture of it for me so I could see. Needless to say-waste of time. When he finished taking the picture, we couldn't find Layne and Jayme's little boy Payce ANYWHERE. My heart started racing and my stomach felt like I had just ingested a chunk of lead. My brother and I locked eyes and we both shook our heads in disbelief. We immediately headed off in opposite directions on the parade route and asked others in our family if they had seen him. We were on the search for him. I immediately said a prayer in my heart and pleaded that we would be guided to find him. I asked a few people as I headed down the parade route if they had seen him: nothing. Jayme had also headed of in the same direction of my brother, but she had found nothing. Unbeknowns to us, a couple of our neices had headed off farther down the route in the direction I had and had found him wandering down the sidewalk with his bagel. I cannot explain the relief I felt when I saw them carrying him-still calmly eating his bagel. My brother mentioned later he thought he was going to pass out when he started looking for him and couldn't find him. We didn't let him out of our sight the rest of the time we were there. (here is a picture of the unhappy Payce afterwards that had to be strapped in his stroller.)



Something else I remember from the parade was that one of the floats was throwing out t-shirts and my niece Jalani caught one. It was a float for the newly accredited university, Utah Valley University, and they were giving away t-shirts with their new logos. Shauna, a friend of the family who was there, is a currently a student there and Lani knew this and gave her the t-shirt she had caught. I thought that was very sweet of her to do so. She could have very easily kept it. I appreciated Lani's example of sacrifice. I'm sure everyone who was there could tell a whole slue of stories from their perspectives of what they witnessed that day. Those are just a few of the things that stood out to me that day.

We then headed back to Lori's house to relax a bit and have a bbq. We all kind of fat-dogged it (a term we use in our family when you are lounging around, usually after a big meal. usually involves napping as well. :) In case you were wondering...) for a few hours before we started BBQ-ing. We were having hamburgers and hot dogs. My mom (THE BEST EVER) even went to the store and got me some veggie burgers which I LOVE!!! That was so sweet of her to cut into her own rest time to do that. That meant alot. After we ate and rested some more, we headed back to West Jordan to all take official naps to be well-rested for the evenings events of fireworks.

We ended up meeting in Lehi-which is a town between Orem and West Jordan-to watch the fireworks. They were having a show at Thanksgiving Point, which is a venue right there in Lehi. We went up on to the Cabella's parking lot that is located up an a hillside opposite the freeway from Thanksgiving Point to watch them. It was a great spot I never would have thought of!! There were several other families that were there as well watching. The McIntire's had it all set up when we arrived: they had pulled out a bench from there van to sit on, had layed out blankets and had brought munchies to eat while watching the show.



I have the best family EVER!! They think of everything! My nephew, Payce and I went around and were watching the pre-shows as different families were setting off their fireworks.



(He calls them FIRE-BONKS. He's hilarious!!) It was neat to spend that time with him and share those experiences.

The next morning, we had planned to meet at Liberty Park to play in the water there and ride the carnival rides there. They have this interesting little repleca that is a small scale of the rivers and lakes that are in the Salt Lake Valley, all made out of cement. Only a portion of the rivers and lakes had water in them , so we played in what was there.






We then had lunch and the kids rode a few rides. My parents were leaving to go to take care of their calling as Stake Baptismal Coordinators and so I decided that was a good time to head out to as I still had to drive back to Boise that night. I was anxious to leave since I had to drive by myself and I am not a big fan of driving in the dark. As I was leaving, my niece Kiersten asked me to go with her to see her new place not to far from the park first before I left, so I went with her. It was nice to catch up with her and hear how she is doing, I don't get to do that much anymore it seems. We then headed back to my parents and saw them before they left for the church. I then took a little nap, had something to eat and headed on my way.

It was really hard to leave my family this time, almost as hard as it was to see my parents go when they helped me move to Boise a year ago. It was so great to spend that time with all of them. I am grateful Heavenly Father kept us all safe in our travels that we could spend that time together. I love my family more than I will ever be able to express with words. They mean everything to me and I am forever endebted to my Father in Heaven for blessing me so.