4th of July festivities

We started out our 4th of July with a great run, the Freedom Run! It was nice and cloudy so not too hot. We decided to make it a whole family event, so Max and Lauren came along for the ride. They were so awesome and didn't make a peep the whole time. Afterwards, we headed over to the parade. We caught the tail end of it. It's always fun to see a parade, but I'm always surprised how intense people get about them. In Provo, people save their spots and camp out days before the parade. It's kind of strange, but I guess it's tradition. Later in the evening we went to the Stadium of Fire with the Patterson clan. It was great! We brought Max, but Lauren stayed home with aunty Kim. I'm sure glad she wasn't there because I would've been stressing about her eardrums exploding the whole time! Max did pretty good. He was tired the whole time, but managed to have a little bit of fun especially when the people in front of us gave him a glow stick. He was so excited to see the fireworks, but unfortunately he fell asleep 5 minutes before they started and slept straight through them. Tommy slept too. I guess the enormous earplugs actually helped their little ears. Kelly Clarkson was awesome and the fireworks didn't disappoint! It was a fabulous night!
George took the next day off of work and we LOVED having him home for 4 whole days! We decided to go over to the Freedom Festival downtown and meet up with Maurine and her fam. Sadly, by the time we got there Max had fallen asleep and slept the whole time we were there and woke up when we got back to the car. When we got to the car he woke up and said, "are we at grandma's yet?" Poor kid. Robbie and Tommy got to touch some crazy reptiles at the festival. Tommy seriously has no fear. He kept trying to play with a snakes head! Maurine wasn't a fan of that. It was fun to see them and we've loved having them around for the last little bit. Later in the day we wanted to go swimming, but the weather wasn't looking too great so we decided to swim indoors. Once we got into the rec center it started to thunder and lightening outside and the power ended up going out! We don't have very good luck. Max kept saying, "I want to swim so bad". This kid needed a victory! Luckily, it came back on and we were able to swim for a little bit (we didn't have to waste our swim diapers!). Lauren loved it! She was kicking her little feet like crazy! She didn't even mind getting splashed in the face by people running past. She is such a great baby!
The next morning we really wanted to see the Balloon Festival, it's become a family tradition. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't so great so it got cancelled. We decided to head to a park or something to make up for it. Then it started raining. Back luck again. We needed another victory so we headed over to grandma and grandpa's because we knew they would be happy to see us and Max would like playing with his cousins. We were right! They loved awaking to our awesome faces! We ended up having a great morning with awesome crepes made by Molly and Katie and then we went over to the Farmer's Market and the kids played in the fountain. It was perfect!
We had a great little holiday! I love that we try to do so many fun things for the celebration of our great nation!