The 4th of July 2008
Couer D' Alene, Idaho
My parents woke up bright and early the morning of the 4th and took our kids to their ward breakfast & flag raising ceremony at Dalton Park. They all said that there were over 300 people in attendance since the ward invited the community as well. Matt and I were able to sleep in since it's been awhile since either of us have been able to do so not to mention we drove to Idaho the night before and were tired from the late drive, it was a nice slower morning on our parts.
After breakfast, the kids had fun enjoying some of grandmas new toys. She's always finding new and exciting toys to keep the kids entertained while visiting at grandma & grandpas house.
Bouncing, Bouncing...
It was nice to spend the weekend with my sister Leah and Charlie, it'd been a whole year since we saw them last. Here is their new addition, little David, isn't he a cutie?
Josh just loved his new baby cousin.
Grandma took Ellie and Josh for a wagon ride.
The guys washed and waxed the boat to get it ready to take out on Hayden Lake later in the afternoon.
Before lunch we all went to the
Independence Day Parade down town
Coeur d' Alene, it was a great parade and the weather was perfect. It was warm but it was slightly over-cast so it made watching the parade an enjoyable time. My parents said that the year before they ended up leaving before the parade even ended since the sun was so hot and the temp was over 100 degrees. It was a very patriotic parade & a nice way to start our day off being reminded of our blessing of freedom and the ones who have made our freedom in the USA possible.
To start the parade off, my brother Tyler ran in the mile race. He was in the very lead as the race started, I was thinking that he would probably burn-out starting off so fast but he ended up coming in the top ten.
The Parade in action.
Josh scored himself a festive 4th of July parade pom pom from one of the floats.
These ladies were my favorite. It's always fun to see them in parades, the Red Hot Ma mas...they are so funny!
Then came the
Usetabees...
and the
usetabees homeboy hero...
and then there were the Red hot ma mas men, and to follow them were the mama's boys. We got a kick out of them!
After the parade on our walk back to the car we had parked next to this
childrens library that had these cool mosaic creations that the kids thought were neat.
Waving his flags, Jarom's proud to be an AMERICAN!
We came home for some lunch and then headed out to the cabin to do some boating on Hayden Lake.
Spencer was a little tuckered out after riding around on the boat, he's taking a snooze on
daddys lap.
Leah & Ellie as they jumped on to the
toob, the water was a bit chilly at first!
Time for a BBQ.
My dad
BBQed up some of his famous BBQ chicken drumsticks for the kids and my parents had gotten some special steaks for the big people.
MMM good!
After the BBQ, we went back to the cabin where the city of Hayden does a really good fireworks display over the lake every year. We had an awesome front row view from the cabin and Leah, Charlie, Tyler & Jeana took all of the kids out on the boat to watch the display from an even closer view (being under the fireworks.) They said it was cool being out on the water, there was a ton of boats out on the lake. From shore, it looked so strange to see all of the boat lights in the dark out in the distance.
We got back to the house around 11:00pm when Matt and the kids did their fireworks that they had gotten. I think they should have done them before seeing the fire works in Hayden because after the fact ours looked pretty wimpy. The kids had to do their own though, it's tradition and of course they loved every minute of it.
Can't forget the sparklers! Our 4
th turned out to be a lot of fun, we all had a really good time enjoying good food, entertainment & most importantly our family!
Saturday breakfast was yummy. My mom made this really good french toast with all of the trimmings. She prepared the french toast the night before with cream and brown sugar and lined them on a tray then she just had to bake it the next day, it was
soooo good. The taste was kind of like a sticky bun taste. I've got to get the recipe!
Good morning Jeana!
Saturday afternoon we got a chance to go over to Spokane to visit with our friends The
Mcluskie family. It was nice to see them and to catch up, their kids had grown so much...we really miss hanging out with them and their family! Left to right:
Jarom,
Rylie, Ellie,
Jaiden (
Spencers little tom-boy girl friend, they were digging in the dirt for bugs together) Spencer,
BreAnna, Josh,
Cassidy & Maggie.
There we are with Gary & Katrina, we had dinner over at their place and the kids got a chance to play. After dinner, we took the kids back to my parents house and put them to bed. Church was at 8:30am, pretty early...so we wanted to make sure the kids got a good nights rest. Matt and I went to see a movie after they were in bed which was nice.
Ice Cream, you scream...we all scream for ICE CREAM!
Sunday evening, we had a icecream cone social in the backyard.
Monday we took the kids down to their favorite park in
Cd'A, down by the water. The have the coolest wooden toy area, it's huge and has just about every thing contained with in it.
Wading in Lake
Coeur d' Alene.
No trip to
Cd'A is complete for our family without a visit to Triple Play, the kids & Matt played a game of Laser Tag. Spencer was so proud of himself for playing this time, last visit he had been to scared but this time he thought it was the coolest experience.
Bumper boats was a wet experience. Ellie rode with me, I let her steer and she got us stuck under the water fall for a bit that and Matt and Spencer sprayed us tell we were drenched,
yah' it was great! I guess it was a good thing we saved them for last. It was a hot day but I'm sure it still would've taken awhile to dry out our drawers.
Matt and
Jarom took a cruise around the go-cart track before we headed back for dinner. Our visit to Idaho was short-lived, it was nice to get away for a bit, to have fun with the family and to do a bit of relaxing as well. Wish it could have lasted longer but all in all it was a fun extended weekend! We ate well, my mom is always certain to take care of that one but we probably all packed on a few pounds over the weekend. It had been awhile since we had celebrated a holiday with my side of the family so it was nice to enjoy the 4th with them.
As I sat in BreAnnas bed this morning with her doing her reading, Josh had fun sitting next to us up at Bres little vanity desk that she put together. He had a good time trying on her head bands and then admiring himself in her mirror. After we were done reading, Bre grabbed the camera and took these pics of Josh, I thought they were too funny! 
Josh is used to the camera, he now poses and says "cheese." The other kids have been getting a kick out of all of the new words that Josh says now. They love to say a word then to tell him to try to say it. They just laugh and laugh when Josh pronounces his new words & Josh just thinks he's all that getting so much attention. He's growing into the comedian of our family, he's got such a fun silly-boy personality these days!
Jarom & Spencer had fun with the blue & green hair spray yesterday, just adorable!
Josh is used to the camera, he now poses and says "cheese." The other kids have been getting a kick out of all of the new words that Josh says now. They love to say a word then to tell him to try to say it. They just laugh and laugh when Josh pronounces his new words & Josh just thinks he's all that getting so much attention. He's growing into the comedian of our family, he's got such a fun silly-boy personality these days!
Jarom & Spencer had fun with the blue & green hair spray yesterday, just adorable!
