Let Freedom Ring!

Yea for the Fourth of July! I feel so blessed to live in this country. What an enormous blessing!

Today was so much fun, I couldn't have planned it any better. And the icing on the cake.... Hawaii is still in one piece! Thanks, North Korea, for not blowing us up!

Trav and I started off the day with a little jog around the neighborhood. It was beautiful weather- topping out at 68 degrees- not exactly summer weather, but we enjoyed it! Then we had some friends over to eat brunch. We made waffles topped with red, white, and blue- strawberries, whipped cream, and blueberries.

Here's Collin sporting his festive outfit. Grandma Evans sent the hat in a package we got this week.
Collin got his first "sunburn" this morning while we ate outside. Crazy because we were only out for less than an hour and it wasn't even sunny! So I put a dab of aloe gel on his head, and spiked up his hair in the process. :)

After brunch, Collin went down for a nap and so did we! Then we visited a new family in the ward whose starting dental school this year. His wife had a baby boy on March 27 so they're just two weeks apart.

We also joined in watching the morbid spectatorship of Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest. I couldn't help but think of the old mother adage "There are starving children in Africa!" while Chestnut and others put down 50 + hotdogs in 10 minutes. Of course, first they dunk them in water or other concocted liquids before shoving them down their sordid throats. *Insert dry heaving noise* But gosh darn, aren't we proud that an American won this patriot- waste- of- time competition?!

Then tonight we went to our ward BBQ at the Stake Center. It turned out to be really fun and we got to visit with a lot of people. And nothing beats free food, right? :) And best yet, I finally got to play some Kan Jam! Thanks to Creed for bringing it!

I had to snap a pic of Briste with her new baby, Ivy. She is so adorable!

Then we went to watch the fireworks with the Cardons in a field near our house. There were at least four different displays going on around us and we had a great time just visiting and watching the sky. You can even see some fireworks in the background on the right. Last year, we went to this exact same spot and Tiff was 9 months pregnant and ended up going into labor that night. So Maddie's first birthday is tomorrow!

So the Collinator got to bed a bit later than usual, but he didn't seem to mind one bit! As long as he got a kiss from Dad :)