4th of July

I got up at the crack of dawn again this year to run in the Freedom race. This time I took Téa and her friend Hannah with me too. I needed someone to stay with our stuff while I ran so no one would move our blankets and try to steal our spots. Since I run the race every year I’m the one in charge of saving spots for the parade.
I’m pretty sure Téa and Hannah played like 1200 games of Uno. The first game started in the dark at 5:00 am.

The 500th game, the sun was finally up. Yup, still at it.

When I got back from the race almost all the family had shown up, finally. Then we spent a lot of time waiting for the parade.

The girls still love the parade. Mark and I have been going since we started dating, 14 years ago. Crazy.

Piper makes me laugh. She’s just a nut.

Mark is a nut, too. I have no memory of this goatee.

Markee and me. Always having fun.

After the parade we had lunch at our house and our annual ‘launching of bottle rockets and anything that will fit in the tubes’ party. This year we launched lil’ smokies, carrots, M&M’s, celery, and other small food items I can’t remember.

Jared worked hard on his homework while we played outside.

All the spectators watching the launches. It must be noted that we got to meet Whitney, whom Josh told us all about at Disneyland, at the parade. Not only did she hang out with us at the parade, she even braved coming to the family BBQ and even watched fireworks with us as well. We should have realized then that things were pretty serious.

Since we ran out of stuff to launch we decided it was time to head to Thanksgiving Point to stake our claim on the grassy knoll to watch the fireworks. Since the fireworks were still hours and hours away we killed time with volleyball, badminton, soccer, Frisbee and other extracurricular activities.

Those other activities include a ‘wand shop’ where everyone spoke in a British accent and picked out their wand. Or is the wand that chooses the wizard?

Piper needed a little down time. Cute kid.

It’s not the greatest picture but just check out Piper’s face.

It finally got dark enough to do sparklers.

And eventually the real fireworks began. It was a long day spent with awesome family celebrating the freedoms we enjoy in this wonderful country. I love this holiday.