Independence Day 2008

The morning of the 4th we got up early... I mean really early! 6:30 am! I saw a sign earlier that week abut a breakfast. I automatically thought that it was for the 4th of July. We got down the street and looked at the sign and was very disappointed! "Sunrise Breakfast, Harrisville Park, Aug 2nd" it said. I was so bumbed! I didn't want to have to make breakfast. We turned around and came home. Matt, my loving husband, teased me about it for the rest of the morning and helped me make breakfast. Pancakes and eggs, and hasbrowns. What I had been craving to eat! After bfast, we decided we
were going to see if we could get a spot to watch the parade. We didn't know what time it started. So we just assumed it started at 9. We finished bfast and packed the car with our chairs and stroller. We got down to Washingtong Blvd and the sides of the street were marked up with spots being saved and chairs and people already out there saving spots. We meandered past Smiths to the open field and decided to set up shop in the weeds. We pulled some of the weeds so we could sit down. We sat for a while... till we all ended up thirsty. She we walked right on over to Smith's and picked ourselves up some beverages. We sat

and waited and waited for the parade to start. We have lived here for 2 years and never been to a parade. We were lazy and usually slept in. Dad kept teasing the kids with certain bikes that went by on the busy street that they were part of the parade. Several floats went by and he would say, "look! There goes some more of the parade. Ok, it's over now. Lets go home." the kids would be like, "DAAAAAAADDD! Stop it!" Just as the parade was ready to start Jayde and Brytni of course just HAD to go to the bathroom. It made me SO MAD becuase we were just at Smith's and they said they didn't have to go. Matt being the nice dad took them to the bathroom. They ended up with lots of candy, and dad and I in the street retreiving Ashlyn from the middle of the street retreiving candy herself! Later on that day we met up with my family, and went to see the Clearfield Fireworks. We found a spot directly across the street from where they were letting them off at. I can't complain about the spot. It was MUCH better than last years spot at the Auto Zone. It was hard keeping the kids away from the busy street though. After having one child hit by a car you tend to be a little on the more freakish side of things. We forgot our water at my parents house (we don't drink the floridated water in davis county), so we and

Uncle Jay walked down to Macey's for some water. While we were there we picked up some snaps and sparklers for the kids. After we got back we all sat around started talking about gas prices and why we were all financially strapped and what we were going to do about it. Matt the whole time were were all sitting there was trying really hard NOT to fall asleep. He ended up in the durango falling asleep in the dirvers seat. My mom was reading and preparing her lessong for church on sunday. We all just had fun playing car swap and talking.
It got dark and the first initial test firework went off, letting us all know they were ready to start the show. It was them shouting "SHUT UP AND SIT DOWN!" At that time Ashlyn was sitting on Matt's lap and kept hiding under the blanket. She didn't like the sound of the firework. She actually sat there for a while and hid. She kept on going from Matt and I, and then she was stuck with me. Finally I was able to get a chance to take a pic of me and my honey! This is what I came up with.

What a TARD he is! He does this to me every time. I have to give him a dirty look before he actually gives me what I want. I just love taking self portrait pics of ourselves. It keeps us up to date of how much we change, and how long we've been married. I know the one thing that will never change. The first picture will always be some sort of a silly one from him. It never changes. This blog will be a testament to it too!

Ashlyn was still throwing a fit, so I decided to stray her attention from the fit to taking pics of her. It never fails that when you take a pic of her she stops crying or whining. This was her "I'm still mad" face, but at least she isn't throwing a fit.

This was Ashlyn's reaction to the fireworks. She immediately covered her eyes and kept saying over and over again, "I wanna go bye bye, bye bye, bye bye!" Dad stole a pic of her cause she WOULD NOT uncover her face. Even when you covered up her ears, you still couldn't get her to uncover her face. Finally dad took her so I could take pics of the fireworks. She ended up falling asleep.

Some Firework Pics I took. I set the camera up on my knee and just snapped pics left and right. Some I timed, some I didn't. I think my puny little camera did a great job. No special effects accept for the flash being off.

We were so close to the fireworks that we had all sorts of shrapnel all over us. You can't see the light dusting on myself, but the black specs you see are shrapnel. I ended up taking a big chunk of cardboard out of my hair when it was all over and done.

What you can't see very well in this pic is all of the dusting and shrapnel all over our car. You should have seen the road! It was worse!

In between the parade and the fireworks we started ripping apart Jayde's room to prep for painting. In this pic you see that we have torn down our "trailor trash" panneling (that's what we like to call it), and underneath was a much bigger project than we had imagined. They had glued the panneling on, then about every 6 inches were nail holes where they had nailed the panneling to the wall. Now this is an old house 50+ years so they didn't use just plain ol' sheet rock. The paint underneath was peeling and not the greatest looking jobby on the world. Too bad I didn't get pics of the room before we tore everything down. I will post pics of the almost finished room in another post.

Here is the dang awful panneling. It went straight outside to be taken to the dump! EWWW! How UGLY!!! Boy am I glad that it isn't in there anymore. 2 years I have been waiting to take that down!!! YIPPEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!