The Fourth of Ju-ly

Now that the 24th has passed, I'm finally getting around to blogging about the fourth of July. Pathetic? Yes. I blame Cameron, who considers himself keeper of our camera, and who uploads all our pictures to his computer. I've ended up delaying my blogging efforts until I felt like I had access to the pictures because, let's face it, no one wants to see a blog post without pictures.

Moving on . . . .

I hold with those who say that some holidays are best experienced in a small town, Independence day being one of them.

Our day started in Summit with the annual town parade. Pretty much any interested person is free to participate and my Dad was only too pleased to haul the grandkids along in a festive garden wagon. The parade got going earlier than we'd expected so we were momentarily concerned that the kids may have missed the grand event. Fortunately, there were multiple passes up and down the main drag, so they were able to jump in and enjoy their moment in the spotlight.


Unfortunately, Ben was determined to be a stinker, and he refused to join the crowd. Nice, Ben.

Did I mention how much I love the Summit parade?

Given that even with an encore procession, the Summit parade lasted all of about 10 minutes, we decided to head over to Parowan for a larger-scale event. The Parowan parade is just my style--and just Ben's style too, as it involved several tractors,


every available emergency response vehicle in the area (sirens blaring),


horses,


the local drill team,


and lots of candy.


Let's not forget little Davie.


Well, actually, we kind of did forget about little Davie. So grandpa took it upon himself to care for his namesake.


He was rewarded by being pooped on. Sorry, grandpa.

We spent the rest of the day lounging and eating (no pictures, but trust me, it was lovely). The day culminated with a lavish firework display at 8:00 p.m. We may have been a little too anxious to get the kids to bed.

My parents' yard isn't landscaped yet (this year though, right Mom?), and since it's pretty much the definition of a fire hazard, we took the show into the road.


Things started off good. Lizzy and Jane enjoyed their sparklers.


Then Ben managed to burn himself pretty good. There were tears followed by much discussion of the boo-boo.


We'll probably wait a couple of years before we try the hold-your-own-sparkler thing again. But, in the end, the day was a success.

Yeah for the fourth!