.. a pioneer day buddy ..

{ me and j*}

so every year on the 24th of july in the great state of utah, is pioneer day. yes it is a legit holiday, although i don't ever get it off of work - sad day. ever since i was a little girl and first moved into my neighborhood my neighbors and their families have had a block party. now we are talking a pretty large block party. like 40 houses worth of families. oodles of people. we have had things like rock climbing walls,  bouncy houses and even live bands. we all congregate across the street from my house and have a huge BBQ. everyone brings a salad and dessert to share and your own meat and it is just a fun time. i have done this every year since i was 12. this year is no different. so we started up the party and had a good old time. my neighbor's kid, j*, is my buddy. i taught him in sunday school since he was 18 months old. he is a cute little fella. so we hung out. we ate food, including cheetos, played ball and hide and go seek. and of course watched our famous firework show. he doesn't like the noises so i got be ear muff person. i got to hold his ears for about 40 minutes. love this kid. meet j*

{ we made the craziest faces we could}

{ oh and again, except all he did was go cross eyed}

this kid is hilarious. love him to pieces.

.. a little independance day ..

so normally on the fourth of july we go all out. like sleep on the parade route, watch the parade, do the freedom fest (a little local market over the 4th), eat food and then watch fireworks. this year none of us wanted to sleep on the parade route and cody and i decided to run in the freedom run, post to come. so it was a quiet one. we went to balloon fest the day before

 {right after launching}

{a bunch of polaroids we took}

 {driving up to the field}

the next day after the race cody and i took a 4 hour nap, i was whooped. we spent time with family which included dinner and a movie, super fun. then cody and i went to fox field to watch the stadium of fire's fireworks. we did this the first year we were married and it was kind of fun to do it again 7 years later. 

{ the kid in front of us had a glowstick hat, hence the weird globe thing..}

the next night we did family fireworks outside our house..

{ it started like this, all three of them were into the flowers, loved them}

{ended like this, daisy freaked out and couldn't hold still unless she was covered}

{jet took cover in cody's legs, and yes he is winking. i guess things were good!}

hope you all had a wonderful fourth we sure did!