Fun and Family on the 24th

Here in Utah, the 24th of July is a bigger deal than the 4th in a lot of ways. One thing I love about where I live is that we're right in the middle of everything.

This year I woke up the kiddos with the grandiose plan of walking to Liberty Park to see the floats as they arrive at the end of the parade route. I thought we could get there at, say, 9:30 or so and see the majority of the floats as they arrive.

At 11:15 we walked out the door.

We live close enough to the park that we can walk there, but far enough for it to feel really miserable in the 100 degree weather.

Still, the kids were troopers and off we went.

Here's some of the fun stuff we saw:

By this point, the kids were hot and tired and Sadie kept asking me when we were going to have fun.

So, like the good mom I am, I made them walk through the Native American festival.

I would have loved to have taken them to the pow wow, but one good look at the shadeless circle (and the admission prices) made me change my mind.

We plopped down in the shade and I took some fun portraits of my cuties:

Tired, hot and hungry, (and not really excited about spending 8 dollars a plate for fair food,) we start towards home when Josh says, "The Aviary is free today!"

So, not one to pass up a bargain even if my kids melt into sticky sidewalk blobs, we make an Aviary detour.

My cutie pies (especially Isaac and Sadie) really love animals so we had a lot of fun. I even got to take some birds home with us!

Hot and tired and REALLY done now, we head back home via 7-11 for Slurpees. I get a little souvenir of my own as I get to do the walk of shame with a huge read spill of cherry slurpee all over my light blue shirt.

The kids have enough time for a little nap before we head to Reed's parent's home for dinner and fireworks.

Here's a picture of Marlow, my nephew. Isn't he a cutie?

Liberty Park has a nice fireworks display for the 24th. All we have to do is walk a block or so and can get a decent view. I've been trying to get the firework picture thing down, and I STILL don't have it down (I think I've got the shutter open too long, and for some reason I'm not really getting the right color.) Anyway, here's my attempt:

At the end of the night, Sadie climbed on my lap and said, "Mommy, I had LOTS of fun today!"

Mission accomplished.