4th of July 2012!

The 4th is one of my favorite holidays. 

It starts at 4:30 am to get to Provo by 5:15 am so I can save spots for the family to watch the parade. 

Then it’s off to the starting line by 7 am to begin the Freedom Run, which is a 12 year tradition now.  Crazy.  This year I decided to be nice and not force Leslie and Jared to run it with me but I wasn’t alone, thankfully.  My friend, Lisa and her daughter, Makayla drove down with me and we started the run together. 

Here we are getting ready at the starting line.

This year’s time was 28:45.  I placed 29th in my age bracket out of 242.  Not too shabby.  Then it’s back to our spot on Center Street to watch the parade.  This year’s parade was kind of lacking.  Still not sure why it wasn’t that fulfilling to watch.  Hmm…

And every year we have to get a picture of Markee on my lap.  I think every year she gets crazier.  She was 5 the first time I met her and she sat on my lap for the entire parade, never taking a breath as she talked to me the whole time.  It was awesome.  That was 12 years ago.  Now she’s a high school graduate…and still talks just as much. 

After the parade it’s everyone to our house for food and games.  This year we added a little hula hooping.  Very entertaining.

And we try to always have the soda-bottle launcher readily available.  This year Mark tried to launch a variety of things.  M&M’s, beans, Smarties, and Lil Smokies were just a few of the items that he tried.  

Here are the spectators trying not to get wet.

You would think that after all that fun we would call it a day.  Oh no!  Never.  What would the 4th be without fireworks?  We headed over to Thanksgiving Point to save the perfect spot to see the show.  We had a great spot that included lots of grassy area to run around and play.  After 3 hours of waiting/playing the show finally began.  Sadly, I have no pictures of all that transpired in that allotted time.  All the cousins played numerous games including setting up a wand shop for wizards run by my nephew who strangely had an Indian accent. 

The night ended when my head hit the pillow at 12 am.  Exhausted?  Yes.  Would I do it again?  Absolutely.  July 4th 2013 can’t come soon enough!