4th of July 2014

This 4th of July pretty much ROCKED. MY. WORLD!!!

We had fabulous company, loads of fun, yummy food, awesome weather,

and well to say it was perfect would be a HUGE understatement.

Oh yeah, We had that much FUN!!!
Here's what we did.
(Oh and I apologize in advance for the massive amount of pictures.  When your company includes an amazing photographer, it's hard to choose only a few pictures to sum up the week!) 

The Monday evening before the 4th, Ryan and Liz's (Mark's sis) family arrived.

We had been looking forward to their arrival for months.

And we spent the day killing time by doing this...

We had been waiting for the perfect week (weather-wise) to get started on redoing our roof.
Monday morning Mark decided this was the week.
We worked long and hard all day tearing off and removing nails.
And yes, I was even up there too and I'm pretty sure I, alone, removed a billion and half nails!
We got about halfway done when the Farnsworth's arrived, and we called it a day! 

The kids immediately hit it off and I appreciate that so much about my girls and their cousins.

It seemed like it always took me a day or two to warm up to my cousins when they would visit.

Tuesday, Mark and Ryan spent most of the day finishing cleaning up the part of the roof we had tore off.
While the rest of us played outside ALL day!
The kids and Liz got burnt to a crisp, but had fun anyways.

At the end of day two, Mark decided he'd done enough roofing for one lifetime, and passed it off to the professionals.
I was grateful, because then he was able to party with us the rest of the week.

Wednesday, we took a field trip into town to show Liz and Ryan the changes of Rexburg.
And to get Paradise Donuts.... and Carrie Ann's Gelato.
Liz and Ryan briefly lived in Rexburg right after they had gotten married....NINE years ago.
So we had a lot to show them.

We first took them to the temple!

The kids loved climbing up and down the many different staircase around the temple grounds.

We then drove around town, pointing out all the new things that have been built since they had left.
It has changed so much.

On Thursday we took another field trip.
I wanted to show Liz, Ryan, and kids one of my top 5 (probably top 2) favorite places,  The Cabin.
On the way up to Island Park we took a little detour and stopped by Warm River to feed the fish.

Once we got up to the cabin the real fun began!
I had my mom and dad bring up the four-wheelers and rafts so the Farnsworth's could experience it all.
The kids hopped on the four-wheelers first thing.

There wasn't enough room for everyone to go so Hannah, Lucy, and Carter stayed behind.
We went for a walk around the block and picked wildflowers for Thomas's grave.
Thomas was my dad's dog that died like forever ago, but it's tradition to pick fresh flowers for his grave.

It started raining a bit when it was time to go floating so we ended up opting out of that.  There's always next time!
The kids had fun playing indoors while it stormed.

It did clear up in time for us to cook our tinfoil dinners over the fire.
Thanks goodness!


And after dinner we decided to hit the driving range at the local golf course.

After we got done hitting about 5 baskets of balls we headed back to the cabin to clean up and head home.
What a fabulous day!

We began our 4th of July celebration with an early morning flag ceremony and breakfast.
We totally missed the flag raising (ooops!) but enjoyed the super delicious breakfast.
A few hours later we headed to find a spot at the Rexburg Parade.
(I didn't realize we needed to reserve our spots the night before!)
Luckily, we found a tiny spot of curb space between a couple of empty chairs for the kids.

The owners of the chairs, once they arrived, were gracious enough the let the kids stay.
And there ended up being plenty of room for everyone.

 We all enjoyed the parade and the kids made a huge haul on the candy!

That night we spent the evening outside, playing, BBQ'ing, and roasting s'mores.

Ever tried Reese's on your s'mores?  Or a Cookies n' creme bar?  Let me tell you - UH-MAZING!!!!

My mouth is seriously watering right now for another one!

 We ended our festivities with fireworks.
Mark and Ryan bought a bunch and then we sat and enjoyed those of our neighbors.

 Lucy's was a bit freaked out (well ALL the kids were) at first!
I seriously LOVE this picture Liz!

 Happy 4th of July!!!

The next day Liz, Ryan, and kids took off for home.
It was sad to see them go!
We only hope they had as much fun with us as we had with them!
Love you Farnsworth's!  Come back soon!