July 4th Craziness!

We spent this last 4th of July in Sandy at Grandma Elaine's with all of Michael's family and cousins.  Michael and his bro took on the task of trimming the trees.  There were loads of dead branches to be had.  Michael made a harness for trimming this tree in particular so that he wouldn't die.  I was so glad he thought of it. :)  He learned all about trimming trees when he worked on the grounds crew at the Denver Temple and he enjoyed putting his knowhow to work.  He was our resident monkey.  I just love how this tree is covered in moss.

Abby had avocado for the first time and loved it as you can see!   She has always loved to feed herself.  It's messy, but I get to eat at the same time, so its worth it.

So about a month before our trip I chatted with my friend Alicia Wall who has been gone from Laramie for two years, and it turned out she was coming down to Salt Lake area at the same time as us!  We were so excited to get our kids together.  Ellie and Bryant are only two months apart and they loved eachother... until they moved.  That was a sad day.  So it was fun that they were able to stop by one afternoon and hangout.  Bryant is such a sweet boy.  If we lived close, I'm sure they'd be good buddies.  Thanks for coming over Scott and Alicia!  So good to see you!

July 4th is also cousin Coulsen's birthday, so of course there was a party.  Ellie refused to go down the slide.  I'm guessing she didn't like the water that sprinkled from above.  She really doesn't like water on her head.  So instead of playing in the water, she "flew" between Uncle Chris and Uncle Matt.  As you can tell, she loved it!

Michael's sister Amber made this adorable cake for Coulsen!  And it tasted really good too.  The rocks on the left are made of chocolate and tasted amazing.

Birthday Boy Coulsen.

Coulsen thought the cake needed a prayer before we ate it.  So cute.

As you can tell, the kids couldn't wait to eat it!  They thought it was sooo cool.  And it is.

Michael and Matt did their usual firework hacking of tanks, adding on all sorts of things for their "TANK WARS".  Michael reverts to a little boy around fireworks and I love it.  It's so fun.

Amazing, I made it into a picture!

Ellie squirting Grandpa Kerry in the face.  Way too close...

The launching begins!

Sister in law Amber with her new camera!  Yea!

(not to be confused with Michael's sister Amber, I know, it can get confusing sometimes.)

These boys were so cute all lined up watching the fireworks.  Love Tyler's expression!

BOOM!

Here I am about to launch my favorite firework.  36 Parachutes!  

And here we are all running around trying to catch the parachutes.  It's pretty much my favorite activity of the night, and maybe because I feel so much like a kid!

Can you tell they are related?

(Stephanie, Kathy, Amber)

Matt and his awesome California candle.

We bought a lot of mortors this year.  This is my favorite kind of firework right here.  It was so fun to lie on the grass with Ellie and watch the big fireworks above.  Ellie was up till 11:30 that night.  It was aweful for her, but she had fun as a zombie.

The next day was Callen's birthday so we celebrated some more!  I got this idea from Ellie's birthday party where we had a waterballoon pinata.  If I had a tree this would have happened for her.  I didn't know we were going to have so many parties and I thought it would be fun for the kids to do, so Stephanie was gracious and let me do it for Callen's birthday.  And I don't think we could have bestowed  it on a more excited participant!  He loved it! 

We put some little toys in the balloons too.  You can see some in some of the balloons.

A bat with rough sandpaper rubberbanded on worked fantastic!  Highly recommend this technique over forks, toothpicks, etc.

As you can see, it was amazing how tough some of these balloons were.  This one took on about 8 hits before it popped.  Surprisingly tough!

Callen blew and blew and blew.... caught you Steph!

Eating some fantastic Tillamook strawberry icecream.  Summer bliss!

When we got home we remembered that "Oh ya, we had a leak from above into our apartment that made us move everything away from this area of the house and essentially make it a disaster area the day before we left!"  Story of our lives.  Leaks, leaks, leaks, and mostly from above!  Not fun.  But Ellie found fun.  She found my formal dress and put it on.  She loved it!  So funny.

That's all folks!  I think I'm finally all caught up!