Monday, July 7, 2014

4th of July

I love the 4th of July. I love celebrating this great country. We certainly have our flaws, but it is still a blessed land and I'm very grateful to live here. Growing up, the celebrating began with a ward breakfast at the park across the street from our house. I loved starting the day with a gathering of friends. My mom started that tradition when she was the ward activities committee chair and the ward still does it to this day. So after the breakfast we'd head to Ely for the parade. In the afternoon we would have a barbecue and in the evening we'd go back to Ely for the fireworks. There were typically had lots of pauses between fireworks, but we still loved them. The fireworks caused the one and only annual traffic jam in Ely :)

So that's what celebrating the 4th was like for me growing up. Since then, especially since being married, well...it just hasn't been quite as fun. I liked being outside and being with the crowds. It just felt like we were all celebrating together. These days, it's a challenge to get family to barbecue outside because it's so hot, and we just don't usually go to public events. It's still fun, but just not the same. I'm gonna keep working on it, though!!

We started the day by going on a hike to Donut Falls in Big Cottonwood Canyon. It took us a while to find it so we started later than we'd hoped. It was a nice hike. The end is a bit treacherous and we didn't hike up to the point where you can actually see the hole in the rock, but it was still a good time. S was a trooper and enjoyed it, too.

We'd hoped to find a pavilion in a park in Provo Canyon and have some of Nathan's family join us for a bbq, but everything was full. I'd tried to reserve a spot, but didn't call early enough. Nathan searched and finally found a place in a park in Pleasant Grove. Everyone arrived, but then it took for-e-ver to get the briquettes hot enough to cook on. Oh well! When it was finally tiime to eat I'd snacked so much I wasn't terribly hungry. My sister, Lori, came up and hung out with us for a while, too. The kids all loved her dog, Stella. Anyway, we had a good meal and afterwards decided to hike up Battlecreek Canyon to the waterfall (or at least some of us did). We got nice and dusty, but had fun. We hung out at Nathan's parents for a while and then headed home where our neighbors put on their own fireworks show. (Last year they started a small fire. They put it out quickly, but we still had the fire department show up!). Some of our neighbor friends weren't home and it wasn't as fun without them. S didn't last long, anyway, and actually asked to go to bed (tell me, when does that ever happen???).


Our little fam at Donut Falls


At the end of our Donut Falls hike. It was so beautiful and it felt great to be in the mountains!


The hike to the waterfall in Battlecreek Canyon. We stopped at Tarzan's bathtub to skip rocks. No sign of Tarzan.


At the end of the hike to the waterfall.


A beautiful sky

No comments:

Post a Comment