Happy Birthday USA

We've spent the weekend celebrating the birthday of our great country. We decided (okay, I decided and the rest of the family decided they'd go along with mom's idea) that we'd do go 'ole American things this weekend. Yesterday evening we hit a local drive-in for hot dogs, onion rings and root beer. Do they even have drive-ins in other countries?

Then we headed out for time at the park followed by fireworks. There is nothing quite like celebrating the 4th with 4 kids--especially when one is 3. "That was totally awesome!" was heard for every single one I think.

Today it rained all. day. long. We started the official birthday with donuts, had grilled chicken for lunch (I mark all birthdays by telling what we ate!) and then we rounded out the day with a trip to the movie theater. I'm not sure any other country likes the movies like we do here in America. We went to a small local theater that has cheap tickets. It was actually more fun than going to the expensive ones.

Hope everyone had a great day with family and friends! Happy 4th of July everyone!

Beautiful day continued....

Here are some more of my favorite pics for the park we visited today.

The above photo was at our final destination on our hike. The kids were so excited that we made it. The maps we had didn't exactly match the path so we weren't sure if we'd find it or not. The photo below is just to prove that, yes, I actually did make it to the end as well.

This final picture is a tribute to our Nathan. This was the last set of steps that we climbed. It was right at the end of the final trail. If you look closely, you can see Nathan in a dark blue shirt at the top of the steps. (Yes, John is in the red shirt right behind Nathan at the top of the stairs. He must've gotten a burst of energy since he'd been saving it most of the day.) We figured that we hiked somewhere around 5 miles today with the kids. And it wasn't a flat hike either. Especially at the first park, there were a lot of steep climbs. Nathan was always leading the pack and never complained. On the stairs he was consistently one or two sets of stairs ahead of everyone else. If I hadn't actually given birth to him, I would be convinced that he was part robot and part human. It will be interesting to see what he does with his future when he gets older. I will not be shocked if he ends up being an army ranger or something else that requires super human strength.

It was perhaps the most beautiful day we've had this summer so we decided to not mow the grass and go play instead. If you are familiar with our state you might recognize where we went today.

Let the hiking begin....we'd already been hiking for awhile when I took this picture. John has taken his normal position in the line. Our most popular statement when we are hiking: "C'mon John".

This is one of the many overlooks that we got to hike to. This was the first one. I'd share the other overlook pictures with you, but they all look pretty much the same except Nathan, at some point, decided that he was done smiling for the camera.

"Hey John, come on!" In fairness to John, we'd walked up and down maybe 1000 stairs at this point--and I am not exagerating that much. The kids were great hikers. The best quote from this park came from Ashley as we were touring the area called "French Canyon".

Ashley: "This doesn't look french"; Mom: "What would make it look french?"; Ashley: "French clothes." Ahh, somehow I think she would have rather been shopping.

After that park, we ate lunch, got spontaneous and decided to visit another one that happened to be nearby. And we were so glad we did. The first stop at the park was a replica of a fort. We felt that we definitely needed to stop and take a picture in honor of Aunt Kim.

This park was full of canyons, streams, small rivers, and waterfalls. We took the trail next to the water. It crossed back and forth by the creek. Yep our feet got wet, we walked in the mud and we loved every minute of it.

Okay, and I now I feel I am pressing my luck on the number of pictures I can have in any one post, so this is to be continued in the next post which will actually appear before this one on the blog....confusing, I know.

The first of our harvest

This is the first pickings of our garden for this year. Okay, technically not the first--I guess we picked some broccoli. I don't think that counts because, well, we had the wrong variety of plant, didn't really get any, etc., etc., etc. The broccoli was very disappointing this year. This is a zucchini for those of you who may be wondering. It's also bigger then this picture shows. I'm going to stir fry with it tomorrow night. YUM!

If I had remembered to get my camera out...

this is what you would've seen this last week:

• both girls jumping off the diving board (we hit the public pool twice!)
• John & Nathan swimming like fish with their life jackets on (we hit a friend's pool twice too!)
• lots of playing in the yard with our new slip & slide (what can I say, it was very hot last week and we enjoyed the water)
• two ticks that Nathan pulled off of himself--YIKES!
• John dressed up as a private investigator
• the girls learning how to do Sudoku from their Grandma Snow
• John & Nathan riding without training wheels--but ONLY in the grass. At their rate it may be a couple of years before we ride without them on pavement
• me cooking fruit loop cookies--hey, they were pretty good. Don't knock them until you try them.
• Sara learning how to mow the grass. She's decided that it isn't nearly as fun as it looks. To quote "Wow mom! This is really hard work!"
• Lots of sitting around in our lounge chairs outside with my parents who came to visit for a couple of days. It was great to do nothing.
• me downloading my first ever ringtone to my new cell phone. What fun! But it has to last forever since I actually paid for it.