4th of July Weekend Part 1

I have been looking forward to this weekend since we moved to Provo. I've been so jealous of my brothers the past few years because they get together and have a huge party over the 4th of July. I think its quickly becoming the favorite holiday because there is no pressure to give gifts, no major meals to stress over, no obligations but to HAVE FUN!

We left Thursday evening, we first stopped to pickup Nicole Taylor to take her up to her family who is also in Boise, then made one more stop in Fruit Heights to grab my nephew Nathan (same age as Tyler & Bryce) and take him up as well. We made pretty good time until we came out of the Mountain Pass and were slammed by rain. Between the stops and the rain it was an extra hour to the trip. The kids traveled really well, and they thought it was so much fun to have their cousin with them. We're thankful for portable DVD players otherwise they would have screamed and yelled and been hyper the entire drive I think!

Friday morning we loaded up to go Boating at Lucky Peak. Boating in Boise is a bit different than Cincinnati because in Boise, you "claim" a dock. You unload all your stuff there and come back to it to eat, lounge, explore, etc. When I was growing up we would go up on the 4th and have no issue getting a nice dock with a picnic shelter and our own little "beach" area. Here we were up on a Friday morning and there was nothing available. Turns out most people had come up by 12:00 in the afternoon the day before and camped out to get all the docks. We asked somebody if we could share their dock while they were out fishing and they agreed, so we finally had our own little place for awhile to let the kids play. The water was freezing cold!! It would have been fun to go swimming, but it was just too unpleasant! We stayed on the lake for a little while, then the little boys started to lose interest so we headed out.

On the way home we stopped at a little ice cream shack called Fanci Freeze, which is one of the world's greatest places to get icecream! I absolutely love it and have fond memories of stopping with my family to grab a milkshake, dipped cone, sunday, onion rings, tater tots, etc. Everybody enjoyed themselves as you can see, including the baby who got to sample a little bit of chocolate. She loved it! Kept smacking her lips and sticking her tongue back and forth.

I noticed a little bit of redness on her cheeks where the icecream had touched her skin and thought it was probably because it was cold, but then it started swelling a bit with white pockets and we knew she was having an allergic reaction. I was worried that we would have to rush her to the ER, but the rash started to fade and wasn't spreading to any other parts of her body. After a little while and a good nap it was completely gone. We figure she has a milk allergy, poor little thing! This is such a new territory for me. I guess we don't have to worry about it too much the first year anyway, but I think she's sensitive to a lot of the foods that I'm eating because she's spittin up constantly.

The kids enjoyed playing together out in the backyard. We had hoped they would take a nap, but they were just too excited. Jason & Jen arrived with the rest of their family and my other two Nephews Joel (11) & Andrew (9) who live in the DC area. The boys flew out by themselves to Salt Lake. We haven't seen them for over 3 years so it was so fun to get together again. That evening we ate dinner at my brother Scott's house. The kids were all outside eating when it started raining and there was a huge clap of thunder directly over the house! Thank goodness there was no lightning to accompany it! The rain settled down and all the kids went to a nearby park to play kickball. We had scheduled a campout with a bonfire and smores and all that, but with the rain and very tired kids, it was postponed.