Happy 4th (and 3rd) of July!

We had a great 3rd and 4th of July!  The 3rd started out a little rough, I was sicker than a dog and actually ended up leaving work early.  I was terrified that I wasn't going to be able to join in on the festivities!  Luckily, I felt much better after forcing myself to eat mid-afternoon (More on the reason behind my sickness another day). 
We started off the celebration with a BBQ at my parent's on the 3rd.  For me this was not just any BBQ, and did not celebrate just the holiday, oh no.  It was a celebration of the end of our Biggest Loser challenge!  Woohoo!  And for me, it was the first huge meal that I had had in WEEKS!  It was GLORIOUS!  I was dying for a burger, and that is exactly what I got.  I will write more on the challenge in another post.  Yes, it was monumental enough that it deserves its own post ;)  But for now, let me continue on with the festivities!

 My family rented a bouncy house for the kids.  They loved it!  We put on the sprinklers so that they could keep cool and it was a blast.  Love some of those faces :)

 Charley and me :)

 Baby Corbin and Heather

 Baby Nash - love that little smile!

El Bell and the Libinator

 Heather and me!

 Baby Nash again - can't help it, these babies are too dang cute!

 Kate, Casey, and Nashie

 Mom and Nic

 Charley and Stockton

 Sweet baby Corbin again - I'm tellin' ya!  I can't get over it!

 My mom doing Bretton's hair.  Yep, this is going on the blog.  I love that fake pleasant smile ;)

 C-Money and Me

 Mmm... Real food!

 Almost everyone, minus some of the kids, and Pig who was working :(  We were also leaving for Provo that night, so he had to get a lot of things ready before we left.  We missed him!

 Mi Padre and Me

 B-Money and Dustin

 Luke and Nicole (Luke biked to my parents house from Farmington - yeah, crazy!)

 Me and the kids in the bouncy house.  It was really nice to be able to spend a couple of hours with my family.  I did have to cut out on the party early so that we could get down to Provo at a decent hour.  We had a lot planned for the next day!:

Our first event of the 4th: The amazing Provo parade!  This parade is HUGE (for Utah)!  We had to be up a lot earlier than I would have liked in order to get there on time, but luckily Brig's parents went even EARLIER to save some spots. Thanks guys!

We took a few of the kids in the back of the truck and they loved it! Such cuties :)

 I took 4 pictures of the actual parade itself, and they were all of this same group!  It was a Star Wars club and they all had some killer costumes!  All the important characters were accounted for, except I don't think I saw Darth Vader, but oh well.  They even had princess Leia in her scandalous outfit from the part where she's being held captive by Jaba the Hut.  Yes, I have 4 brothers and I know a little bit about Star Wars - back off.  The whole thing was too funny!

 My love :)

 Becki, Mick, and Jen

 It got pretty loud at times!

 Me and baby B

 Brig doesn't hold babies, as I've mentioned before.  I really needed to grab something, so I handed baby B over to him - didn't give him much of a choice.  He wasn't quite sure what to do.  He had an itch in his eye and wouldn't let go of the baby even with one hand to scratch it, so he just yelled at me to hurry and take him, haha!  Oh boy!  Do you see why we don't have kids yet ;)

 After the parade we headed to the park for some lunch.  Cue overeating number 2.  Holy smokes!  I told myself I was going to be good and not binge just because the challenge was over, but, that obviously didn't happen.  Who was I kidding anyway?!

 J and T - T is really good at pulling faces for the camera ;)

Sammy was there too.  She loved it!  It was a really great day for her, and that made me happy :)  Don't know how more many days she has, so we'll take advantage of every one that we can!

My intention was to get a picture of everyone that was there, but it didn't happen.  Good thing we have the reunion coming up!

After lunch we each took a nap, which was wonderful.  After that, we went to dinner.  Sheesh, more food?!  Yes, more food.  I wasn't planning on eating a ton since I wasn't very hungry.  So naturally I got the most fattening thing on the menu at Costa Vida and ate most of it.

After that we met up at the park to watch the fireworks!

 There was ice blocking - believe it or not, I had actually never done this before.  It was really fun!

 And pictures

 So cute!

 And waiting and waiting and more waiting!  It took a long time, but we finally got there.  It was pretty cool to see all of the different firework shows going on all around the Valley, and of course to be pretty close to the Stadium of Fire fireworks.

 And I'll leave you with this gem ;)  This is what happens when he feels like I've taken too many pictures.  But I just post them anyway :)  Sure do love that boy though.

I feel so unbelievably blessed to live in such a great country!  I think that a lot of people don't realize just how lucky we are.  I am grateful for all of those who have done and sacrificed so much so that we can continue to be free!  God Bless the U.S.A!