Fourth of July 2015

We started off our Fourth of July celebration by letting our children fight and claw their way to more government handouts.
It always boggles my mind that our city sponsors this activity, but the kids LOVE it, so we do it.  Diving for Dollars. 

The kids are divided up by age groups.  Three to five, six to eight, nine to twelve, and thirteen and up.  The kids line the side of the pool while some city person throws lots of coins in the pool.  They sound the siren, the kids jump in and scour the pool bottom for money.

It is rather violent and there are always a few kids crying.  I mean, really-- how does this activity continue to get approved?

It was fun for us to introduce cousins Alexis and Julia to Diving for Dollars.  Although you can see from this picture they weren't nearly as cutthroat as Bethany in the pool. 

Cannon's cannonball off the high dive. 

 After swimming we headed over to the awesome new city park for a sneak preview performance of the Guys and Dolls cast.  They were performing a few of the musical numbers and they sounded and looked so great.  This show (August 6, 7, 8th) will definitely be a highlight of the summer.

 

Bethany holding a prop camera.

You can't see either Clark or Bethany in this picture, but it's just such fun.  This is during, "Sit Down, You're Rocking the Boat".

We rested up at home in the afternoon, but were delighted by a surprise visit from Abe's Uncle William and Aunt Marilyn.  They live in Vernal and came by to say hello.  Of course, it called for a group picture.  Lots of things in our family call for a group picture.  It's the blessing and the curse of being born into this family.

 These guys played a lot of Settlers of Catan this weekend. 

We headed back to the park for the fireworks that night.

We were sitting VERY close to the border of how close you could get to the fireworks.  As it turns out, you can sit too close. 
Several of us were hit by fireworks "shrapnel"  and ash and such.  Also it was very loud and Peter didn't really appreciate that.  So lesson learned, next year we'll move much further back.

Cannon and George didn't make it all the way through the show.  They were pretty worn out from the day.  I remember loving going to see fireworks with my family as a child.  So even though it is kind of a pain to pack up late at night and fight crowds and traffic and Abe's creative parking jobs,  I am so glad we can go see a fantastic fireworks show right in our own city.

Happy Independence Day!  What a truly blessed land we live in.

Every year Abe and I have the same discussion about whether or not to take pictures of fireworks.  I say "nay" as we don't have a good camera and pictures of fireworks are never anywhere near as impressive as the real thing and I won't post any of his pictures of fireworks.  As already mentioned, according to Abe, anything you enjoy warrants a picture, so he says "yea".  Thus he takes pictures of fireworks every year.  This year we both win-- I'll post his picture and he can acknowledge that, indeed, it's not a good picture and the real thing is much better.