Action Packed 4th of July Weekend

Joshua had Friday and Monday off of UVU Prep for the 4th of July weekend. That meant four days for Jr. to fit in as much family fun as possible. Jeremy had to work all weekend so it was mostly the kids and me but he was around on Sunday.

Friday, July 2. Balloon Fest was happening throughout the weekend. That's where a bunch of hot air balloons are together and they do different activities. It is part of the Freedom Festival in Provo. I got up early to sit outside to see if I could see the balloons from home. I couldn't see anything. I found out later the balloons didn't lift off the ground that day because of the weather. I did get a little wet while I was waiting. Oh, well.

Later that day, I took the kids for a picnic and Provo Story Trail at Rock Canyon Park. After the story, we continued walking around the park and Jr. asked to use the camera. He climbed a hill and brought this picture back to me.

"Crop Circles! Today is World UFO Day." 

"It kind of looks like a face which also goes along with the UFO thing."

We also looked at "mashed potato clouds" while we were there.

That night we drove by Balloon Glow as part of Balloon Fest. They had several hot air balloons on the ground and shined lights on them to go along with music. The kids and I decided that we'd get up and drive by the next morning to see the hot air balloons in the daylight.

 

Saturday, July 3. Surprise. Surprise. When we got out that morning, we could see hot air balloons from home. They were able to lift off! 

We drove anyway and were able to see them much closer. As we got closer to where they were launched, they were all over the place, some even over the road where we were driving. 

We drove to Carterville Park and everyone was able to get out and get a good view. We were even able to see some where they landed in nearby parking lots. That was a fun morning. I love hot air balloons.

 

 

Before we left, we found a little friend who decided to crawl to a place where it would get squished if we closed the door. I tell you, snails are faster than you think. Jr. nicely moved it so it would be okay. Good kid.

That evening to celebrate Eat Beans Day and Chocolate Wafer Day, we had burritos and chocolate wafer cookies.

Definitely click on this picture to see Jet and Lucky's faces.

Sunday, July 4. It was National Caesar Salad Day so we had chicken Caesar salad wraps with 4th of July type food- potato chips, potato salad.

Monday, July 5. The kids and I went to see the giant flag hanging over Grove Creek Canyon. We hadn't gone to see it since we lived in Pleasant Grove. I blogged about it in July of 2017. It's definitely become a bigger thing- not the flag itself, but the event with it flying. There were flags lining the trail up to a spot to get good pictures. There was lots of informational stuff in the parking lot. Yeah, it's become a bigger deal just in the last few years.

That evening, the kids and I went to pick up Jeremy from work and we had Family Home Evening lesson and treat in the van. Then we did our activity at home. As it was National Graham Cracker Day, our treat was graham crackers with frosting in the middle. Homemade frosting. I got the recipe from The Food Nanny. It is frosting they use on brownies but I think it works great on cake (or on graham crackers).

We were also able to see the giant flag from the freeway. Yeah. It's huge.

So that was Jr.'s action packed 4th of July weekend before he went back to UVU Prep to finish out the last couple weeks. I hope he enjoyed it.

Even though Tuesday, July 6, wasn't part of our weekend, it was International Kissing Day. I got lots of kisses from and gave lots of kisses to my baby and I mentioned later to Jeremy how he and I didn't kiss at all that day. Huh.

What They Missed- August 12

Wednesday, August 12-
I feel like my one accomplishment the whole time Jeremy and the oldest two were gone was getting the kitchen table completely cleaned off.

That and taking the boys out to feed the birds... most days.

I had a rant written down on this day when I was taking notes. I don't want to write it on here. I'd rather write about Middle Child Day. Jr. Jr. was excited because now he is the exact middle child in the family. With the two oldest gone, Lucky was the middle child of the two that were left. So we celebrated them both. I had Jr. Jr. figure out the menu plan for dinner, though.
We had pizza, dried fruit, and root beer. I taught the boys a trick of using a red vine for a straw in their cans of root beer if they bite the ends off first. Red vines dissolve easily in pop, though, so we had extra sugary root beer.

 
That night we went outside in the dark in case we could see any shooting stars. Before we got very far, though, the neighbors' porch light came on and the boys started playing Shadow Wars. They were cute.

We went in the backyard to look at the sky. We didn't see much in the way of shooting stars since we were still in the city. I think I saw a couple, so does Jr. Jr. We did see UFOs, though. That was cool. Jr. Jr. explained to Lucky that UFOs are Unidentified Flying Objects so if you can't tell what is, it is unidentified and therefore a UFO. When I first saw one it was floating across the sky. It looked like the shape of one of those elongated parachutes that people use to jump from Point of the Mountain. My next thought was... some sort of stealth jet you could only see the outline of if you were trying? We all watched it as it continued along then watched it change shape. Well, there went my stealth jet theory. It was weird. Was it a group of bugs flying in formation then changing formation? We saw these UFOs a few times so it was either several groups or individuals or it was the same group or individual going around again. It could have been eerie but we found it interesting.
We also saw several planes and helicopters flying around flashing green and red.
While we were out there, we sang a bit of "Somewhere Out There" from An American Tail just in case Jeremy was out looking at the same stars from a few states away.