4th of July!!!

I have made a goal to keep up on my blog posts (we will see how long it lasts). But we had such a fun weekend i'm sad that its over. The fourth of July is my favorite holiday second only to Christmas. Growing up in Provo is the best, I dont know any other city that has so many festivities for this holiday. We had our Markham family reunion on the third and enjoyed seeing long lost cousins, and eating way too much food! As a Provo tradition, everyone stays up all night long on the night of the third saving places for the parade the next morning. Conveniently my family lives two houses down from center street which is prime parade property. So we did not get much sleep, but it was worth it.

We always have so many of our friends and family join us for the parade, and Kate was lucky enough to have a whole litter of the cutest little puppies sit next to her. She was in heaven!

She was also joined by her cousins, and they all had a blast watching the parade! Afterwards we all went over to my parents house for a yummy lunch!

This is Kates mischevious face. She learned to get the lemonade out of the big drink cooler and so she proceeded to push her wagon under the drink cooler and fill it up, she also filled up her purse with lemonade and then sat in the sticky lemonade wagon and dumped her lemonade purse all down her dress. She was a very sticky mess, luckily this was at the end of lunch so she got a bath and then ran around naked for awhile.

Later that afternoon we met up with all of Chads family at his uncles cabin in Oakley. Grandpa took Kate for a walk, and then she took him to the toy room and they played house. She had alot of fun. We also celebrated with a baby shower for Chads cousin Trina. We are so excited for her (especially since we are neighbors, now I will have a cute little baby to play with!) But it was really fun to see all of the cousins again!

After the cabin we went to Chads parents house and Kate had her first experience with sparklers, and we also got to watch some cool fireworks. She was a little concerned at first and kept covering her eyes, but after a few minutes she began to like the idea of holding the sparklers and she tried to grab them, so that was the end of sparklers.

During church many of the speakers were reflecting on the holiday and how blessed we are to live in this marvelous country. I realized how blessed I am for my freedom, and for everything I have, especially my family! We are so lucky to live where we do and have the opportunity to get an education, and to worship how we choose, and to be able to express our opinions. This holiday is a great time to reflect on everything we have and remind us of how precious our freedom is. I hope everyone had as good of a holiday as we did!