4th of July (and nearly drowning)

Back to Back holidays w/ Syracuse Days and Independence Day!  Everything was great, except the double duty parades.  I love parades, but even I had to admit seeing a repeat of most of the "floats" and taffy we'd just seen the week before, except in a lot more traffic and crowds, was a little lack luster.  At least we found a shady spot and packed otter pops :). Also, I had just gotten my new iphone, which is the FIRST phone change I've actually enjoyed, so I could fill my spare time taking pictures, talking to Siri (my childrens' new best friend), and finding out the camera can take pictures from BOTH sides of my phone!

 If you're worried my sunglasses are too much, don't panic--I lost them when I nearly drowned with Anne & Lucy in the wave pool soon after this picture.  I now have a softspot in my heart for lifeguards, great Tongan dads (one came and rescued Anne from climbing on top of my submerged body) and oxygen, and promise not to take 2 children on one intertube into the deepend waves w/o lifejackets!! (in short, I'll try to remember and THINK!!).  The next time we went swimming, it was just me and the big girls (Maddie & Emily), and while we had a BLAST going down all the slides w/ no lines over 20 times, I did feel like crying a bit for our first dip back into the wave pool.  After that though, I felt strong again. 

 Still, I barely know what else to do on a 4th of July morning, and there's something nice about affirming love of country with everyone around you.  And we did NOT have this cool Ogden (still in construction) Temple float in Syracuse:

Since we were already at the park, we watched the ducks and played at the playground for a bit before heading home.  It's a beautiful, photo-inspiring park, but that did not make my children forget they were now hungry, tired, and hot.

We came home and relaxed w/ a feast of brats, watermelon, corn on the cob, brianmade potato salad, annual patriotic cake AND I made my very first batch of SLUSH!!! (which I celebrated by eating half of) so the children were thrilled to see soda pop :), and then we drove over to the church in West Point where we saw Aunt Kenda & Chaundra & Jon's family, and played games while waiting for fireworks, which started, and then stopped after a couple of minutes, so we went home, and saw them (and many more) in the distance--I love how in Utah, you can see so many places shooting them off at once :)--begin and end the day in community :).

We wore our colors all week :)