Duncandoings: Patriotic Days

Besides Syracuse Days, 4th of July and 24th of July (Pioneer Day), we've added City Council Campaigning to our list of ways to celebrate where we live! (though I use the word "celebrate" loosely). We had NO idea what campaigning specifically involved, and we have had a whirlwind education, thanks to great campaign managers, supporters, and people more experienced than we are! We are also campaigning jointly w/ the mayoral candidate, which just makes all of our gatherings MORE of a party :). We've had photo shoots of Brian (w/ my vast photography experience), stapled rubber bands to flyers--which sounds simple enough, but X 6500 flyers for every door in the city, it was HOURS of almost ALL-night fun involving EVERY family member--and putting said flyers on 6500 doors (divided into well-organized teams throughout--our family only had about 300 doors), and crazy nights of putting signs out all over the city--a few times, getting milkshakes after, at 10 PM, or standing like groupies at a busy roundabout in the dark of night, I feel like we're all back in college or something!--but my pregnant energy levels and impending mornings soon remind me otherwise :). I know this is a lot of Brian, but-besides our wedding day, I've seriously never seen him smile so much for the camera!! (only slightly painful for him!)

Here's the finished product--we actually re-did the pic's to try and reduce his squinting :)--again, I was just thrilled with the smiling!

Here we are stapling (at home, after staying 'til midnight w/ the "campaign crowd" wasn't enough!):

Passing flyers (this was not the fateful day that we moved from one neighborhood to the next, while leaving Emily behind!--AS it started to RAIN!!---another brightspot parenting moment):

and Brian's first sign out (the first picture is of him campaigning to a passerby)

Though there is way too much contention in our sweet little town, it has been rewarding (and humbling!) to see so much support from so many, including perfect strangers. Though he hates the negative, he is SO in his element at Meet the Candidates/ Debate nights, talking about issues and principles! It's invigorating to listen to him :)! When he asks, "Do I need to smile more?" after these meetings, you can guess what I say :) (always!)
I can't believe I didn't get any shot of us all on a golf cart for the Syracuse Days parade!--but here we are watching the rest of it after:

That's the end of June (also commemorating when we moved into our house 5 years ago!), and for the 4th, we met some friends for the Layton parade, relaxed that afternoon, then met up w/ 2 families for a barbecue that evening, and tried out Clearfield fireworks that night (again, pretty lazy camera this year!)

For Pioneer Day, some friends invited us boating, so we met them at Willard Bay, and the 4 oldest children all (successfully) tried knee-boarding! Half of us at a time stayed on the beach swimming in the WARM water while we waited. So fun! (sorry that I was not on the boat to photo the kids in action!)

Emily did not want our handmade bonnets to go to waste the one chance we have to use them (we made them for Maddie's trek last year), so she dressed up Anne and Lucy, rigged up a cover for our wagon, and took them on a mini-journey/picnic around the block :)--she is SO creative entertaining the little ones so often!

We came home that night for hamburgers, fresh corn on the cob, and watermelon, then did sparklers, snaps, and watched all of the neighbors' great fireworks!