4th of July weekend

We went to my parent's house in Idaho for a long 4th of July weekend. Spending a weekend in Idaho is right at the top of my list of favorite summer things to do. It's always so nice and relaxing. And a huge perk is that my mom's yard is TO DIE FOR. A summer weekend always means lots of time spent hanging out in the yard enjoying the nice weather. And man, we had some gorgeous weather over the 4th of July weekend. We spent a good part of every day hanging out in the lawn chairs under the shade of the willow tree in the backyard. Usually with a cold drink or popsicle in hand. Life doesn't get much better than that. Too country for some people? Maybe. Hey, you can take the girl out of Idaho....but you can't take Idaho out of the girl.

Just a few things that we were up to over the weekend. Grandma playing with Payton on the swing.
Backyard barbeques. I think we cooked out on the grill and ate outside on the back patio all three nights that we were there. Grubbin'! This picture is just to show a little of the fantasticness (yeah, I know that's not a word) of my mom's yard. I want a yard like this. I just don't want to have to wait 20 years to get it. Even the garbage man commented on their yard. Funny story, the garbage man came earlier than normal one morning because of the holiday. So my dad was running down the driveway pulling the garbage can as the garbage truck passed our house. I was getting a kick out of watching the whole thing from the front porch. I'm thinking, "Tough luck dad. You missed him." Oh boy, was I wrong. The garbage man picks up our neighbors trash and then BACKS UP and comes back to my parent's house. WHAT?!? That would never happen in Utah. If you miss the garbage man....you're stuck for the week. I guess it's nice to know that the garbage men in Idaho are friendly, country folk like that. So anyway, the garbage mans hollers down to my dad, "You've got a really great place here. Must be a lot of work to keep it up, but it's beautiful! It looks like a park or something!" I thought it was cute and still just couldn't believe that he came back.

Anyway, back to the Idaho fun. It DEFINITELY wouldn't be a summer weekend in Idaho without a fire in the backyard firepit. I think I ate my weight in s'mores over the course of 2 nights spent in front of the fire. But, mmmmm....we had some good s'mores.

We all went to the zoo for an afternoon adventure one day.

Diva in training?

It would be cool if this was a huge ROAR that I caught him doing, huh? Too bad it was just a big yawn.

Another treat for the grandkids is when my parents irrigate the lawn. As kids, I know we spent hours and hours running around in the yard when it was being irrigated. So now the grandkids get to enjoy the same thing. Payton didn't want to wait until she could walk or run in the water, she wanted in on the fun now. So Craig plopped her out in the middle of the water and off she went.

She splashed on herself each time she plopped her hand in the water, but she was still loving every minute of it.

Covered in grass and mud and who knows what else. But happy as can be. I'm sure she'll be like the rest of the grandkids and just LOVE Idaho for all these fun things.

Here's a little video clip of the action.


And then the main purpose of the trip to Idaho. The Idaho Falls' fireworks. A company in Idaho Falls (Melaleuca) has been putting on the fireworks show for about 15 years now. We've heard for years and years about how great the show is. So we decided that it was time to check it out ourselves.

We almost had a little throw down over our spot on the grass. Craig and my dad and brother had staked and roped out our spot on the greenbelt on the 3rd. I guess this is the norm because most of the greenbelt is staked out with ropes and chairs and blankets or whatever will save someones spot. When we showed up to our spot on the evening of the 4th, we found our stakes pulled up and there were chairs and blankets in the spot, but no one was sitting on them. So my dad picked everything up and basically put it all on the sidewalk behind us. When the people showed up, I think they were pretty shocked to see all their stuff moved. My dad said that he just didn't look at them. Tami said that she heard them grumbling and having an attitude about it. But they didn't say anything to us and we didn't say anything to them. Oh well. Happy 4th right?
So here's the main event. Incredible! I'm a huge fan of fireworks and this one definitely didn't disappoint me. Somewhere between 13,000 and 14,000 fireworks are used in the show. It was awesome. I think it might have to become a tradition for us to go to Idaho Falls for the 4th because I don't think any fireworks show is going to compare after seeing this one.

My brother took this video clip of the finale. He had to lower the quality of the video quite a bit or else it would have been way too big. Notice how the clip is 1 minute 35 seconds. Have you ever seen a finale that's over a minute and a half long? All I can say is....THIS is what a finale should be like.