Happy 4th of July!!

We have been out of town on the Fourth of July for the last two year in a row (New Mexico on the way to Texas in 2006 and Alaska in 2007), and this year the girls begged us to be home for the fourth of July. So we did, and we had a great time!

On Wednesday we decorated our house. We put out a bunch of flags and hung some twirly foil star things that looked pretty cool. (Unfortunately the wind played havoc with them for two days and pretty well destroyed them.)

On Thursday we went to the Kerman Ward potluck BBQ. There was a whole lot of food and we all set up our chairs and blankets on the back lawn of the chapel. When it started to get a little bit dark, the kids all got sparklers. (Most of them started writing with them on the blacktop. What's up with that? What ever happened to twirling them around in the air?) Then the kids moved back and the Young Men lit some fireworks there in the parking lot. When it got dark, the fireworks started. The city of Kerman shoots of their fireworks from the high school stadium, which is a block away from the chapel, so we had great seats! The fireworks display was awesome! We got some great photos! We love our new camera!

Today our culdesac, Michelle Avenue, all gets together and has a big block party. This is the fourth year we have done it. Everyone really got into the 4th of July spirit. There were things going all day long, snow cones at one house and swimming at another, water balloons at another, etc.. We had a potluck BBQ, and we all got a chance to sit and talk. We even got a fly-over of sorts. Some jets who were lining up for a fly-over of the downtown Fresno stadium flew over us and it was really neat!

As it began to get darker, we got out the poppers (they make a popping, craking noise when you throw them at the ground) and sparklers for all the kids. There had to be at least 30 kids out there, all going through what had to be a million sparklers. We had a huge bag that we had been kind of collecting over the last several years, and then everyone else had some too. Then we all pooled our fireworks and had quite a show. We had bought the Moondance Fountain and the Red, White and Blue Salute or something like that from Phantom Fireworks and I want to remember those for next year. They were great!

It was a fun way to celebrate the birth of our nation and the freedoms we enjoy and should never take for granted.

-Lora

See all the July 3rd pics HERE.

See all the July 4th pics HERE.