Happy 4th of July!

What an amazing fun day! We love the 4th of July and have traditionally celebrated with family. However, some amazing women in our ward started a neighborhood bash a few years ago, and we decided to check it out this year. What an incredible event! They started with a fun parade, then had water slides, a bounce house, an awesome dunk tank, rockets shooting off, and the fire department came and let the kids check out the truck and then shot water (effectively dousing my canopy, chairs, etc., but luckily no one was in it, and I had my camera with me). If you're wondering why most of the pictures are of Aspen and her friend Alicia, it's because Connor napped through more than half of the event, and Shaylee and Devin were having so much fun I couldn't find them half the time. The rest of the time, I was having fun rather than monitoring my camera.

We ended the evening watching the fireworks at Thanksgiving Point and setting off a few of our own in the street in front of our house. The kids couldn't have asked for a better day.

Aspen with her decorated bike ready for the parade (although she was very disappointed not to get to dress up as a princess and practice her "parade wave"--you know, "elbow, elbow, wrist, wrist, wrist"--so we'll have to have another parade by the house for that).


Aspen and Alicia ready and raring to go:

The girl scouts led us in the pledge to start the day off right:

Check out this water slide:

What's better than a good friend and a snow cone on a hot day?

Checking out the fire truck:

"Mom, this hat is heavy!"

This hose can really shoot!

Run away!

The rocket flies amazingly as well!

What a dunk tank! And squirt guns to boot!

No idea where the new "bonk" on his chin came from. This boy is a walking catastrophe (but so cute!!!).

Face painting--gotta love it!

Shaylee enjoying the bounce house with the boys.

Our neighbor Luke :)

This was not on the 4th, but rather the 5th--inspired by a photo in my brother Seth's wedding video, he had Shaylee put his hair in ponytails for his future wedding video (lookout future Mrs. Brown!). I think this also means it is way past time for a haircut!

And can I just say, "I'm proud to be an American?"