Joe's family's 4th of July

Hey family, I have a few pictures that I can put up, and I'll try to give a short description of what we did. If it sucks...sorry, I've never done this before. Enjoy...

For the first activity we went and hiked Stewart falls above Sundance. It was a sweet little 4 mile hike that takes you through a "well maintained" trail over rocks, roots, bushes, snakes, bugs and other cool stuff. When we got there we played in the ice cold water. Me and the older kids hiked a little higher to see where the water was coming from. Sorry...I don't have those photos with me.

On Saturday we awoke at 5:00 in the stupid morning and went to the balloon launch at 6:00.

First all the balloons get out the bicycle pumps and air up their hot air balloons. Then, after doing the Pledge of Allegiance to our wonderful countries flag they all take off and race to a point to the North. Then they race back to the field they started in and they have two tries to throw a bean bag at a huge target, and pop balloons that are tied to the ground and floating freely at different locations above the target. It's a three day competition. Pretty cool to watch. If you look closely you can see a pink balloon shaped like a piggy bank. Smokey the Bear and Tony the Tiger are out of the picture because they went the wrong way when they took off. Sucks to be them right?

Next we went home and got ready to go to picnic at Nuns park and play at Bridal Veil Falls. We had a great time! I hiked to the top going through the water. There is a trail going to the top, but I like taking the hard road. (If you haven't noticed that about me by now) Oh yea...We went with Kristy's family. Here are some photos for your enjoyment...


After hiking we went to Thanksgiving point to watch their awesome fireworks display. Usually we stay outside the main area so we can make a quick get away, but this time we decided to brave the crowds and go into the main area where all the crazy people are. We got there about 6:00 because they have bands that play, everyone is having a great time, and I wanted to light off my own fireworks. After doing most of them some old lady came over and got mad at me because all the smoke from my fireworks was going their direction. She told me..."Stop doing your fireworks!! Don't you know it's against the rules to light fireworks inside the park!! You're smoking us all out!! Everyone over there is mad at you!!" I let her finish ranting at me, then calmly said..." I was unaware of that. Thanks for letting me know." Then I finished the rest of my fireworks. Now...I know what you're thinking. Joe is such a jerk! and that's probably true, but lots of other people were doing theirs too, and some were just down from her. So I just smiled back at her when she looked at me all huffy, with her hands on her hips when I continued to light my remaining flash bulbs, noise makers and freaking huge fountains. (that make an awful lot of colored smoke) When the real show started all the smoke was coming back toward us and I wanted to go tell the lady that she needs to go tell someone that she was getting smoked out...Kristy wouldn't let me...

That was such a long day...

Sunday we just went to church...nothing important like hiking or or fireworks though.

Monday was Caedens birthday. I took it off work so we had his party early. We took him and two friends to see Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (awesome movie) then we took them and met Kristy's family at McDonalds where we had a blast playing on the toys, eating the most awesome food the fine workers at McDonalds could make for us, then opened presents and had cake.

Here's my new 5 year old.


Here's my almost 9 year old (July 23)


Alexis managed to miss pictures...

If you didn't notice...Kelsey wasn't with us for anything until the fireworks because she went boating with her friend up by Park City. So I'm showing you this picture of her so you know she's still part of our family.


That's it...I hope you liked it...