I love you Independence Day!

Fourth of July is by far my absolute favorite holiday. The weather is beautiful and warm, you spend time with your friends, family, neighbors, you go to parades, community events,  fireworks, bbqs, eat fresh summer fruit, you can go spend all day out in the sunshine... it just doesn't get any better than that!

This year I volunteered to reserve a spot at the parade in Rexburg for my family. Unfortunately, Malone couldn't come because he had to work, so I went to reserve a spot alone. I got to Porter Park at 9 (an hour before the parade) and there was no curb that wasn't reserved on the whole route! Unbelievable! So I snagged a shady spot at Porter Park and waited until everyone got there. Mom and Parker showed up at about 10, and then Chris and Natalie and their family, and Tiffany and the boys, and Ashley and AJ all trickled in throughout the parade. I had fun playing with my 5 month old nephew Sam, whom I adore! I think I missed half the parade because I was mezemerized by those baby blues! And I took about a dozen pictures of him too. Anyway, lucky for us our shady spot was shady almost the entire duration of the parade, which is a first. I think we usually end up sitting in the sun at parades. After the parade, I went and picked up Malone from work and we went to lunch at Costa Vida. After lunch, I went home and spent some time with the dogs until Malone got home. We hung out for a couple hours and then went with our friends Jared and Kami Clark to a BBQ at their parents house in Rigby. The Clarks had a fenced in backyard, and were nice enough to let us bring our dogs to play. So Kami and Jared brought their black lab, Tab, and our neighbor's Great Dane, Diesel, and we took our Doberman, Kayto and Min Pin, Altivo. The dogs had a blast running around the yard, especially Altivo. Jared's family seemed to enjoy having all the dogs there, and we had a blast playing with them all. We hung out, ate, talked, laughed, and just relaxed till about 9:30. We drove over to Jared's Grandma's house in Menan to watch the fireworks from her backyard. It was a great view, and we had lots of space to ourselves! Even though we had good seats, good company, and we avoided most of the traffic... I was still slightly bummed about missing the IF fireworks. They're the BOMB. Last year I said I had hoped we'd go to those this year, but it didn't happen haha. So I'll say it again, maybe next year!