Happy Belated Birthday America!

Happy Birthday America is all that I heard my brother in law, Dustin, say all day. He had all of the kids saying it and it was quite funny. Gunnar was even trying to say it. Our ward has had a 9am breakfast for the past couple of years now on the morning of the 4th. It is starting to grow and become quite the tradition. We always have good food and good music along with great company.

After that at about 11:30am we sit and wait for the parade to start in town. I love Caldwell. It is big enough to be called a city but small enough to be able to see a great parade and still be able to get in and out of your parking spot close to the events.

Uncle Jesse

The parade started with a firetruck. Gunnar was in to it until it got closer and louder. He would just hang onto anyones leg for comfort. The first group to go through were the Boy Scouts. They handed out Otter Pops. Pretty smart idea. We also saw my dads good friend Robert Segale walking in the parade with the military. I just had to get a picture for you dad. He waved because he knew that I was taking this for you.We also saw several really neatly decorated floats. The theme this year was "Happy Birthday America". We got so much stuff from the political people running. The kids loved what they got...hats, foam balls, frisbees, lots of candy. Of course they also had the horses and queens.

After the parade we headed to the park for a picnic lunch and fun. All of the kids things were free so all four of them jumped and jumped and jumped. Gunnar has gotten so big. He is a jumpin' machine. What kid does not like these things. Cousin Reece and Gunnar

And boy is it hard to take a good picture. The colors are great, the action bad. There were two set up. A jump house with a climbing part to slide down the other side which Gunnar couldn't get up. Then the other one was just a teeny obstacle course to the climbing wall, then you slide down the other side. Gunnar could actually manage that one and loved it. A church group was also doing face painting. Gunnar was incredibly good. We were really surprised. He sat there so still for the entire time. He got a caterpillar and was very proud of it. The funny thing about this is that Gunnar still thought that it was still on his face on Sunday. All day long he would lightly tap on his cheek and say, "Pretty". We also walked around the car show and learned that the city pool is open this day for free. We will have to remember that for next year.

My mom went up to northern Idaho for the weekend to attend her little brothers Temple sealing and my sister that lives next door went camping with her in laws for the weekend, so we were in charge of taking care of 5 dogs (including ours) for the weekend. We decided to stay the weekend at my parents house for a mini vacation. We told Jeff's brother to bring his family over for the evening of fireworks. So after the park, we all headed home, had naps and met there at about 9pm. The cool thing about my parents house is that it is on a ridge overlooking the valley. So from their house you can easily watch the Caldwell fireworks, Middleton and sometimes others. You can also see all of the people lighting the illegal ones making for quite a fun show. We also bought a couple and lit them off. I just have a hard time spending money on something that lasts seconds. I was so excited about Gunnar and sparklers this year. I must have bought the worst ones in the bunch. They were crud and didn't really stay lit. So we didn't do that. We are still borrowing a family friends commercial snowcone machine that makes the real shaved ice. So we all had yummy snow cones and cookies. Gunnar was great this year. Fireworks could not scare him. He sat with all of his cousins and had a great time. He kept yelling, "Firetrucks mom!!" until I finally figurerd out that he was refering to fireworks. I had to work hard at getting him to say fireworks.

We had a really fun time. The next morning Jeff went shooting with his brothers and had a lot of fun. It helped that the 4th was on a Friday creating a nice long weekend.