4th of July

Happy Independence Day, America!  This is one of my favorite holidays because I love summer and the 4th of July epitomizes everything summer.  We started our celebrations off on the Sunday before the 4th at the Hyrum City Patriotic Program.  Charlotte was in the Youth Choir that performed during the program.

The choir did a great job singing God Bless the USA, and the Armed Forces Medley.  The City honored our veterans and they even presented an honorary Purple Heart to a veteran's family.  It is always very humbling to hear the stories of the veterans.

On the 4th, the real celebrating began.  We started the day with the Hyrum City Parade.  Emily and I were in the parade with the Hyrum Youth Council.  

We threw candy to all of the people during the parade.  There were so many people watching the parade that the whole parade route was packed.  We realized we were going to run out of candy about a couple blocks into the parade so we really had to be careful with the candy. During the middle of the parade, it started to rain.  It only rained for about 10 minutes and then was done.  It was just enough to cool us off which was nice.

When we got off the parade float, Emily and I went to find the rest of the family along the route.  Since we were one of the first floats, the parade was still going by the time we got done.  We got to see many of the final floats.  The last parade float was the King Bin garbage cleaner business and they blew millions of bubbles at everyone as they drove passed.  It looked like it was snowing in July!

After the parade, we walked to the Elite Hall to see the Grand Ole Flag display.

This exhibit, put on by the Hyrum Museum, displayed every version of the American Flag from the original Betsy Ross Flag to the modern day flag with 50 stars.  It was pretty interesting to see the changes throughout the years and read about the history.  The kids also made patriotic windmills to take home.

During the day, we just relaxed, enjoyed the sunshine, and hung out at home.  At night, we all got together as neighbors to do fireworks.

Sparklers are the kids favorite.  The Lee's also purchased a bunch of big fireworks so it was fun to watch them go off as well.  Fireworks are huge in our neighborhood. We can just sit in our front yard and watch fireworks go off all around us from all of our neighbors.  Its nice because we never have to buy fireworks, we just watch everyone else's.

Our friends, the Pini's, came over to watch the City Fireworks with us.  Since the city shoots off the fireworks basically in our back yard, we have the perfect viewing area from our house.  All of the kids just huddled up on the trampoline with blankets and watched the firework show from there.  It was the best seat in the house (or yard).

The Hyrum Fireworks were pretty amazing and lasted for probably a half an hour.  We were all enthralled with the booms and pops and lights.  I love that we can watch from our house.

When the city fireworks were done, we moved back to the front yard and continued watching the neighborhood firework show.  Then Emily looked down the street and saw a bright light coming from Joel's house.  She asked Russell what it was and he took off running yelling, "It's a fire! Call 911!"  

I grabbed my phone and called in the fire while Russell, Kurt, Brad and his boys started to fight the fire.  A stray firework spark had gotten into the dry grass of Joel's yard and just went wild, burning all of the weed and grass in his back yard.  Brad got his hose to spray water while Russell and Kurt grabbed shovels and started shoveling dirt on the flames.  Of course they were in their best fire fighting sandals at the time.  Finally the fire department arrived and got out the big hoses.  Russell and Kurt had the fire pretty much out by the time the fire department arrived but it was nice to have the big hoses to spray everything down and make sure there were no hot spots.  

We can laugh about it now but at the time, it was pretty scary.  Thanks to their quick thinking and action Joel's house and shed were saved from the fire.  Only the grass and weeds were burned. If the house would have caught, there would have been even more problems and it might have jumped to the neighbors' houses.  It was a good thing Emily saw it when she did and that it happened while everyone was still outside.  The Pini's didn't realize how much excitement they were getting into when they came over for fireworks!  Neither did we...  What a way to end the night!

Happy 4th Of July!  I am glad we are all safe and free!