fourth of july + pioneer day

This year we headed to Moroni for the 4th.  I have so many good memories of the 4th of July growing up and it's fun to get together and spend it with my siblings and their families.  It's also fun to see cousins, aunts, uncles and friends from growing up.  We drove up on the 3rd and the party started. My favorite part though is just to be at my mom and dad's.  They have a beautiful yard and the kids love being outside playing kickball, baseball, basketball,  "annie, annie over",  jumping on the trampoline and whatever else they can think of.




This was a lot of fun.  We got a whole bunch of glow sticks for the kids.  Christy had the idea to turn each of the kids into a stick figure and dance.  We used a lot of tape..seriously, I think we used every bit of packing tape in the house.  It was hilarious to watch them dance!  The little kids looked so cute.  We all piled in the back of the truck and drove up to Uncle Tim & Aunt Cindy's.  The kids were so excited to show them that they were glowing dancing stick figures.


Some people in our family are really ambitious and get up at 6 a.m. to run in the "turkey trot."  Maybe I will do it next year.  Or...maybe not.


Every year the Cook boys (my 2nd cousins), fly over and do a ping pong ball drop.  The ping pong balls have numbers on them and the kids can take them to the carnival and get a prize.



Hello Candy!


Jack wasn't interested in putting candy in his own bag.  He had things figured out.  Somebody had their stash under their chair and when he was ready for another piece, he knew right where to go.



The races.  Everyone gets a quarter and the winner gets a gold dollar.  
Minutes to Win It games..

Because of the fire in Sanpete County a few weeks eariler,  Moroni didn't want to chance doing fireworks.  Instead they did a color chalk throwing thing (I'm sure that's exactly what it's called).  My eyes hurt looking at this picture.
At the last minute we decided to head over to Mt. Pleasant to watch the fireworks there.  I love fireworks.  I also love America and am so thankful to live in this great country of ours!