Wednesday, September 7, 2011

independence weekend

i love when independence day falls on a weekend. it is the best excuse to stretch the celebrations out as long as possible.

this year, we followed tradition by spending the day with cade's cousins at spring lake. i was hot, sweaty and large with child so i wasn't too keen on jumping into the lake this year. so, i left the fun to cade and vi.
plus, this gave me some time to spend with these cute lil' nubbins.
after the lake, we went to granny's for yummy food, family and fireworks.

granny lives so close to byu's stadium that we get the whole experience without paying a bunch o' money or sifting through crowds. we just lay out our blankies, snuggle into the ones we love and enjoy. it is always a highlight of the summer for me.
granny, who is cade's grandmother, is a woman i admire immensely. she has such a love for her family and for the Lord. honestly, i want to be like her in so many ways and i have absolutely cherished the time i have had to get to know her. she loves life and that passion is so contagious!
for the celebrations this year, she gussied up the yard, prepared food and then watched as her family played on her lawn all night long. we love life too, granny.

the celebrations continued as we headed to my parent's house for more celebrations. again, great food, family and fireworks were shared. i swear we brought our camera but now i cannot find ONE picture from that night! i am so sad about it.

violet loves to play in the backyard at nana's. instead of eating, all she wanted to do was climb the giant ladder and go down the slide (that is triple her size) all by herself. she probably repeated this for a good hour or so. she is a wild one.

for fireworks, we all gathered on the back lawn and watched some pretty cool displays. since the arial ban was lifted this year, it felt like the whole world was doing a FABULOUS job celebrating america. grammy wanted to give the best firework dhow possible so she asked the salesman to give her their best firework they had. we saved it for the finale- and i am glad we did. as the "whoa daddy" started, it literally felt like we were inside of a the firework. we were ALL screaming with delight. seriously. we have a video of it all and all you can hear is my sister and i screaming our lungs out as the firework exploded. if that doesn't say, "go usa," i don't know WHAT does.

finally, for monday's day off, we ran the freedom run again. this is a fun tradition for us to do- and it is always nice that cade's work sponsors all of us to go. i am not one for running these days so i walked it with some of my very favorite friends in the whole world. it was perfect. i must have looked fatigued- or extra large- that day because all along the route people would yell out encouragements to me and say they were happy to see a pregnant woman in the race. great times...

our weekend was PACKED with celebrations and it was great. the perfect ode to summer.

No comments: