Fourth of July '09

Well it has been one great Fourth of July weekend. I loved every minute! The festivities started at 6 AM Saturday morning, when I got the girls dressed in their cute "I love the USA" outfits provided by their Grandma Baum. We went to the community breakfast at the Ashton City Park at 7 AM and it was just a little frigid. We decided to go play on the the playground out in the sun after eating our pancakes, sausages, hashbrowns and Sunny D. Leah was still pretty cool and it didn't help that this weird contraption kept going round and round and round. She just wasn't too keen on the whole Merry go Round idea.

But it was back to the happy girl we all love and know when we got onto the playground equipment. 

And the swings were by far the best, but it was still pretty chilly.

As you can tell by Leah's face in this shot below.

Then we quickly went back home to wait until the parade started at 10. So here we are waiting with all the other hundreds of people for the parade to start.

And waiting.

And waiting some more.

Lily snoozed.

Then it started. There were a ton of people! 

It didn't take too long before Leah got the whole candy thing down. She sprinted out there and got as much as she could and wanted me to open some for her so she could eat it. 

My dad was in the parade along with other farmers for the Farm Bureau Float. They handed out chocolate milk, and lots of it!

You can't have a parade without decorated go-karts.

Yeah she really loved the whole "throwing candy" thing. Notice her little hands chalk full of candy.

Good ol' John Deer floats.

Here is our Ashton Stake Float. They did a great job!

Now the charm of a small town parade is that you get to see it twice because it goes down main street and turns around and comes right back. So this is us waiting for the parade to come back around. 

Leah decided to try out the chocolate milk. 

Lily decided to wake up and grace us with her presence.

During the parade, four of these airplanes buzzed over head in nice formations. It was cool.

Then the parade started again! It was a 4th of July Miracle. HAHA

The Loot!

Then it is tradition to head over to the City park and listen to live music played by my friend Meieli and her husband James and Zack's friend Christina, Meieli's sister. They did an awesome job! They had booths to get a burger, mexican food, corn on the cob and cinnamon roasted almonds. It was also fun to see people I hadn't seen in a long time. 

So behind us we noticed that the Fire truck from the parade had come over and started spraying water for all of those who wanted to get wet. And get wet they did!

Okay..... let's play "I Spy". I spy Leah and Andrew chasing after.

Andrew was too late. She ran right into the spray and was paralyzed with fear and just hunched over and didn't move. 

She was drenched!

And wanted to go back soon after!!

We went back home after the park and had a fun BBQ with three racks of ribs, watermelon, corn on the cob, potato salad, and of course a flag cake. I don't have pictures but my mom does. Then at 10 pm we went down to the church parking lot and watched the city fireworks. We arrived right on time to get the best spot and the fireworks were practically over our heads. 

I love fireworks!

Then, Sunday evening we invited Andrew's family up for dinner and games.

 We had one of the best meals I have ever made. I'm not one to keep secrets so here's what was on the menu. 

Chicken Fajitas

I marinated the chicken that morning before church (10 hours) in this concoction:

1/2 cup olive oil

1/3 cup lime juice

1 tsp. sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp. cumin

3 cloves of garlic minced

1/4 cup vinegar

1/2 cup chopped onion

1 tsp. oregano

1/2 tsp. pepper

1/2 tsp. paprika

2 cups chicken stalk

2 tbs. honey

2 lbs. chicken or you can use skirt steak

I marinated the chicken and then grilled it on the charcoal grill. As for the 

Green, red, orange, yellow peppers

Yellow onions

I cooked those on the stove and poured in about a cup of the marinade and cooked them with that. 

Then of course you have to have the flour tortillas, Rice a Roni Spanish Rice, Refried Beans or Black beans, Cheese, Guacomole, sour cream and Pico de Gallo. 

I made a great Pico, all it is is:

2 ripe tomatoes (not romas) diced

1/2 yellow onion diced

1/4 jalapeno pepper minced

1 tsp. minced garlic

1/4 cup of cilantro chopped

juice of 1 lime

dash of salt to taste

Good on chips too.

It was fast Sunday so we ate a ton! After dinner we played Mystery of the Abbey and then we loved on little Lily. 

Then on MOnday, yesterday, we were invited to Wes and Alyssa's house for a BBQ with Andrew's friends from High School. It was soo much fun. I had a good time and so did Leah. THere was a little boy that was her age and she played with him all night. After dinner we lit off some fireworks bought from Wyoming so needless to say they were pretty awesome.

During the show Leah found a little friend, and I mean little because she is so cute and petite. She is Macy, Dan Robison's wife. The first firework went off and Leah headed straight to her arms. Macy was more than happy to hold her. 

Here we are all bundled up, it wasn't that cold but it's fun to bundle up and watch a good firework show.

A little ceremonial lighting of the roman candles. :)

Sparkler art.

You may be wondering what Lily thought of all this, the following picture says it all. 

What a great weekend! I loved spending time with family and friends. I hope the tradition continues of having a great Fourth of July here in Hideyho!