The 'Actual' 4th...

The 4th of July fell on a Monday this year, which meant that after all the fun extended family fun, we still had another day with Stanton home from work!  We didn't waste a single second of it.

We got up and had breakfast, then headed out to Green Canyon for a hike before it got too hot.  We got eaten alive by bugs within about 100 yards, so we ran back to the Jeep and (thankfully we had some on hand), sprayed everyone within an inch of their lives with Off.  That helped a ton.  We were able to hike about a mile and a half into a pretty little valley and then hike back out.  All of the kids did really well.  Lily started to complain less than halfway in, but with the promise of ice cream, she got her act together.  :)  I ended up carrying Cannon most of the way -- he wasn't quite able keep up with all the long-legged folks he was tagging along with.
The hike was really beautiful -- we live in the most amazing place.

Look how big they're all getting!  Well, except for Stanton....look how small he's getting!

We went to SubZero (a fun ice cream shop where they freeze your ice cream with liquid nitrogen right in front of you) for lunch.  Yep, that's right.  Ice cream for lunch.  :)

After ice cream, we headed home and spent the next several hours cleaning the house.  We also got chore charts together for the kids and had a nice little family home evening about responsibility.  After FHE, we went to dinner at Mandarin Garden.  How better to celebrate our Independence than by eating Chinese, right?!  It was actually SO fun.  I love going out to eat with our kids.  They are so enthusiastic and crazy and even mostly well-behaved.  They are just at awesome ages right now.  I love them!

After dinner, we bought an inexpensive pack of fireworks and went home to have what's becoming our annual daylight fireworks display.  The kids are so thrilled with any kind of firework, even dinky ones in broad daylight.  I love that about them.

Everyone got to bed on time and the day was pretty much perfect.

I love my little family.  I'm so thankful we live in this beautiful country and enjoy so much freedom and prosperity.  I get all teary eyed thinking about this nation and the hard fought freedom we enjoy.  I'm thankful to those who have sacrificed so much to make that a reality.